मेरा आजीवन कारावास / माझी जन्मठेप (स्वातंत्र्यवीर सावरकर - काले पानी का ऐतिहासिक संस्मरण)

our political prisoners who had been won over by such kindness and those who desired for nothing but selfish were always invited by him for a personal talk with Mm. But strange as it may seem, he always invited me along with them. The only difference he made between them and me was that while, giving them some writing work he seated them in chairs, he made me stand in front of him like an ordinary prisoner. It was done deliberately and with a motive to humiliate me before them, to make me repent for my obstinate conduct with him, and for my refusal to give up public work as a concession to his kindness. Mr. Barrie and the members of his family as also the friends read the poems I used to compose for them, would listen with interest to the story of my life, and it must be said to their credit, that they showed due appreciation for it. On the whole, they regarded me with a feeling of respect and I often wrote some English poems for them. On one day in the year, Mr. Barrie had made it a rule of his life to be on terms of perfect cordiality with me. And that was Christmas. It was impossible for him on that day to shake off completely the traditional influences of the religion of Irish Roman Catholicism on his mind. The demi-god of Port Blair, the autocrat and tyrant of the Silver Jail, came out that day an extremely different man —a man full of kindness and warmth for all. On that day the political prisoners, with all their efforts to annoy him, did not disturb the calmness of his face. No scorn or contempt or anger was visible on it, even to the extent of raising an eye-brow. He invited them for Christmas in his office and treated them to tea, milk and other sweets. I would say to him at that time that he had better give us a newspaper or two to read rather than entertain us to tea and sweetmeats. Mr. Barrie, to be fair to him, gave us the newspapers and sent us sweetmeats to follow them. If I could not go to his office that day, he sent the sweets to my room. That day he never treated any one harshly, and, as far as possible, heard no complaints against him.

Who were these tale-tellers?

Mr. Barrie's shrewdness was as defective as his kindliness. He was ever crooked in his kindness as he was foolish in his shrewdness. For he had in his temperament that trait of foolishness which disqualifies a man from knowing his limitations. The shrewdness he boasted of may have served him -very well, perhaps, in dealing with the ordinary class of prisoners in his jail. And he imagined that it could work effectively in all cases and with all persons. That he should have shown and read to me his diary in the office was, in his view, an act of remarkable shrewdness to trap me in. But it was I who scored against him in that business because I knew, in spite of myself, what he had been writing against me to his superiors. It was he who was exposed and not I. And I had the further advantage of glancing through his diary, though he did his best to hide those pages from me in which he had been writing in praise of those among us who had gone over to his side. After he had finished with it, Mr. Barrie said to me with an air of self- importance, "Well now, you have seen my diary, what do you think of it?"