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

Then about the news, about the lust for news. The prisoner is sorry that he gets no news in the prison while the outside world is full of it. That makes life tolerable. But you have to look at it from another point of view. Does any news give you ever entire satisfaction? Say, you know that India is free. But consider well, if it satisfies you. For your mind will begin to think how long will that freedom last and on what terms. For India once was free; that freedom brought her glory and greatness; the great and glory made her lethargic; and lethargy made her lose freedom. Look at her history and you know the truth of the matter. One generation fights for freedom, another enjoys the fruits of freedom, and the third generation loses it. Suffer, fight, die, enjoy, lose—that cycle sums up the history of every nation, dynasty, community and society. These three or four words contain the story that we call history. Is not all news the quintessence of these basic truths? Do you not think that there is nothing more to hear than this? Why national history? Even the history of the Universe is summed up in these five significant words. For all the ups and downs of this Universe end, after all, in deluge. Its origin, its creation was the first news that has now grown so time-worn, so stale. The end of the Universe— that news, broadcast,—will surely thrill the world of man as nothing else can, any day or at any time. From creation to dissolution—the phrase sums up neatly the story of the Universe. And you know them both—the beginning and the end. Why then worry that you don't get news here? The philosopher shall find no delight in sports that satisfy the child. All the detailed news must swing like a pendulum between these two extremes,— birth and death; creation and dissolution; flux and reflux. And the news are so transi- tional, transient and passing, that not one of them satisfied any man, and his thirst for it never ends—whether one is in prison or free like the wind to blow where it listeth. The last man's news excites your curiosity in this prison as the last week's news attracts the American. For in America every three hours a newspaper comes to birth and the latest news is welcomed as the best. America wants no stale news. The American mind is anxious to know the latest. The Stock Exchange and the Wall Street are the two barometers of the American temper. If tomorrow we are able to procure news from all sides of the Universe, the human mind will be anxious to know what happened on the Planet Mars, as it is eager to know today what happens in the world of man, or as you are anxious about news from India. So that philosophically speaking your life is not altogether useless or any worse than that of the so-called free man in this world. Behold that city of ants within the pages of that book. How it bustles with life and activity like the great Pataliputra of ancient history. Look at those eggs, look at their queen, look at their princess, and at their army of ants ready to fight and sting; their standing army, and their divisions and classes, and their division of labour. Look at the film of gnats floating before your eyes in the light of the sky. It is a nation of wanderers like the Jews. They fly together in swarms from region to region and settle nowhere. Do not regard them as insignificant beings. You call yourself a man, but you have no wings to fly. But the gnat which is one-tenth the size of the sesame, has wings and it flies. How fine the nerves and feelers? How intrinsically small and yet efficient for work? This is God's great miracle, learn it and be wise. This is real diversion to your distracted mind. Great scientists spend a life to understand the infinitely small in the Universe. They study insects and worms, or the animal world, beasts of the earth and the fowls of the air, their life, their ways and habits, and record