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

He went and gave the letter faithfully to my brother. I had not forgotten the definition of valour he had given me. The dacoit considered the thief as his inferior and despised him even as, among the untouchables, the mang does not touch the domba. Next day I sought to bring the truth home to him that pillaging and loot may involve daring of a kind, but, as it was selfish, it was by no means either laudable or meritorious. I did not put it so to him directly, but by means of a parable I set him right on the matter. He seemed to understand me all right. Never since then did he boast to me o his exploits as a dacoit. It was not even two days after my arrival at Thana when my brother-now Dr. Savarkar-was removed elsewhere. The officers knew that we were never to meet each other thereafter, but they did not arrange for our meeting together here and behind the prison bars, when only the partition on a wall separated us, one from the other. For years together after this event, I did not know where he went, when he was set free, and what he did in life. No information was given me about him by the authorities or by any one else who knew him. Behold My Tiger! The head of waders in this jail was particularly appointed in charge of the lonely part of it, where, for the time being, I was kept in custody. He was stout in body, light hearted and funny in disposition, ever smiling, but the most secretive of all the warders in that gaol. Naturally the European officers of that place confided in him. He always tried to draw me into conversation. Real or apparent, perhaps it was mingled feeling, he was full of compassion for me. He tried to give me as much good food as possible. He never gave the slightest trouble. He ever connived my talking with any one else. He discussed politics with me and sought to impress me that I had ruined my life by following the wild goose chase. Coming and going, he called other warders near my door and pointing at me would exclaim, “ Behold my tiger. A man should be like him.” Then he would sing a skit-“ Marvellous is thy deed, O Fate, marvellous thy play. Thou hast trapped a tiger in a spider’s net I say.” And then he would eye me significantly and go into a dance while he chanted those lines again and again. Sometimes he raised a discussion in which he put a question and answered its pros and cons, all by himself. “ How mighty is this Government”, he would say, “ how funny that these few brats who would beat it! And, look here, these aspire to take the raj back from the British Government”! Then with this argument on his lips he would flourish his stick around him, take a few steps forward, and whirl himself round in a dance. Suddenly he would put a question to the company of warders he had gathered round him. He would ask one of them, “Why, O, Ramya, do you think that the wind is cut to pieces by my passes at him?” and the company would burst into a peal of laughter. They could not but laugh, for was it not their Havildar, their chief, who had cracked the joke? Perhaps, they would suffer if they showed reticence. But the chief would turn round on them and ejaculate, “Fools, why do you laugh? Do not these few brats do the same to the British Government? I beat the wind with my stick. My lord,