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

CHAPTER IV On The Way The portion of the prison-house reserved for the chalan’s confinement in the gaol at Thana, was to me like crossing the threshold and entering the precincts of the Andamans. The room in which I was locked up in that outlying part of the gaol, though a solitary cell, was within hearing of the rooms occupied by the prisoners in the chalan. I could hear from my room the noise they created, the sighs they heaved, their wails, their talks and their good cheer, clearly enough to divert me from the long loneliness of my own cell. My mind, oppressed as it was with dejection and grief, felt relieved by this company of prisoners near me. They were really hilarious, for, as I know, man laughs even in the dungeon-hole of utter calamity, overbearing grief, and unbearable tortures of body and mind. Such is his resilience. Perhaps, that horrid laughter is the acme of all laughters as it unburdens the soul of all the horrors of under-ground imprisonment. Man laughs when he is reduced to extremes, and his grief laughs with him when he grows callous to it, as if he has thrown it off himself to pass it on to the shoulders of callousness itself. Excessive joy or the ecstasy of joy, if you will, makes a man burst into tears. Similarly an excess of grief bursts out into broad laughter. It is said, that in the days of the French Revolution, when inhuman bloodshed, slaughter, guillotining and murder had been the order of the day; when no man’s head was safe on his shoulders; when the premier and leader of today found himself to be the arch-traitor of tomorrow, with the guillotine waiting to chop off his head; when things had passed into the reign of terror, theatres in Paris were full to over-crowding, as they were never before, and wine flowed freely in the taverns of the city. Hilarity, mirth, merriment and brutal murder kept each other company, and danced and laughed and roared in sheer recklessness. “ Let us eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die.’ That seemed to be the obsession of them all. Reckless Laughter The same was the experience during the great world war of 1914-1918. The officers and the crew on the German submarines had to do the hardest, and the most dangerous duty during that period. With their head on their hands, they had to dive deep underneath the sea and expect death in that bottomless pit every moment of their breathing life; they had to torpedo boats and steamers plying above, at the risk of their lives. In that precarious state they had to come up on the surface for rest and refreshment. And they ate and drank to their heart’s content in the restaurants that were specially