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

changed his opinions from time to time. But the reaction had been with him but a temporary phase and had never lasted long. This letter was but another illustration of that passing mood. My friends agreed with me in that conclusion. Some protested that the letter itself was far from genuine, it was a fabricated document put on to us, as a newspaper-cutting, just to fathom our minds. I disagreed with them. The analysis in that letter of Turkish ambition and of the attitude of the Amir of Afghanisthan, along with the feelings of the Mussulmans towards India and the cause of their opposition to national demand, were absolutely convincing. I had been telling them the same thing all these years. The letter had no effect, beyond this, on any one of us. The slogan "Today we leave, tomorrow, we are sure to go" had now fallen behind, discredited by facts. The hopes it had roused had been dashed to the ground. If the slogan and the forecast behind it had proved true, every one would have been reckoned among us as a prophet, like so many other prophets who go about the world. But the tide had turned and the opportunity was no more. All of them were full of gloom. But there was another raw to catch at. The victory of Great Britain in this war must inevitably lead to general amnesty and pardon from Which we cannot be excluded. This now became the talk of the prison; and the mind swayed back like a pendulum from despair to new hope. Just at this time, India was discussing the Andamans and its climate as detrimental to the health of prisoners. What I had written about it in my last letter had contributed largely to raise the controy in the newspaper world of India. And they wrote about me personally that I should be transferred from this place to some prison in India for reasons of health. Instantly a rumour found currency in this prison that old political prisoners in the Andamans were soon to be taken back to India. What of me, then? The rumour had it that I was to be sent to Singapore! And a few days after I found Mr. Wamanrao Joshi and two more with him getting ready to leave for India. They somehow managed to see me in the hospital in order to bid me good-bye. These loyal colleagues who had fought and suffered with me in a common cause took leave of us, and with a heavy heart I said farewell to them. They had gone and now I was alone and left behind. For me and my brother I had never expected any change from one place to another, any turn of fortune in our favour. And, therefore, we had no occasion to be crushed by the despair which is the reaction of fond hope. We could stand up to anything because we had expected nothing. The only hope that now remained to many of us in this prison hanged round the slender thread of the celebration of victory. But it proved a dupe like a proverbial mountain in labour. Every prisoner got from it no better solace than the remission of one month's sentence in a year. Some very old and aged prisoners were, of course, let off and the political prisoners we're not excluded from the list of those who had got remission of one month's sentence per year. But for me ! What was my good fortune? As in the past, so now onwards ! Not a day's reduction in my sentence—no mention of my release or transfer anywhere.