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

childhood, I, his elder brother, was like a father to him. He never knew to live apart from me and me and cried like a child when I had to stay away from him even for a day. And this was so until very recently. To find him in the same place, in shackles like myself, and undergoing the hared labour of grinding corn, was an experience harrowing in itself. To add to it he was to learn from me today, as I had learnt about him, that I was here on a life-sentence and on my way to the Andamans. He had heard of that sentence no doubt, but they had all hoped that the Hague tribunal would turn it down and order me back to France. In that expectation my brother, and others like him, would drown their own suffering. But now that the slender thread of hope had given way, and I was to be transported for life, how can I be the bearer of that news to him? Oh that I should be the person of all others to break it to him! One of his elder brothers had already gone to the Andamans. And now I was to follow him there! I was to meet him no more. Already orphaned in the loss of his parents, this brother of mine to be doubly orphaned now. When he realizes that the Andamans for me meant no sight of me for him any longer, what a blow it will be for him, and how it will break his tender heart! In case he is set free, to whom will he go for help and shelter? Who will shelter him? Who will look after his education? The lad shall have to go from door to door, and every door will be shut against him. With contracted brows they will look at him and turn him out as a prisoner, a convict, an outlaw, and a man to be shunned. On the rising tide of grief these thoughts lifted their heads to be drowned with the ebb tide that followed it. But they suffocated me all the same. My Master, Have It The warder returned. He came up very near to me. It was completely dark by this time and he whispered, “Master, take it”. He put a slate into my hands, and expostulated, “The Superintendent has warned the warders against giving you any news of your brother on pain of ten years’ rigorous imprisonment across the seas. If you were to breathe a word of it, then I am finished.” So saying he instantly left me and went his way with measured steps and with creaking noise of his shoes in the corridor. The slate was a letter to me from my dear brother, my younger brother, Bal as we called him. A lantern was burning at a distance, and the writing was dimly visible in its light. I read the letter with feeling of affection welling up in my heart. It contained not a word of sorrow, repentance or defeat. On the other hand, it breathed an assurance that, come what may, he would never budge an inch from the vow that he had taken. He was prepared to face the worst in fulfillment of that vow. I decided to indite an answer. In the Andamans we can send only one letter home during the year. But sometimes that opportunity even is denied to us. I felt, therefore, that this was the last chance I had to write to my dear Bal. I beckoned to the warder who was patrolling in the corridor. He came up with stealthy steps. Let the night fall, and then he would do what he could, he said to me, and went away.