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

CHAPTER XI I meet my family again Last days in the Andamans Just about this time my younger brother paid me a visit in the Andamans. There was no hope then of my release from that place. My elder brother had continued to be failing in health. And, therefore, the first thought that struck us when we three met together was that perhaps that was the last meeting together of us three. For, the next time that such a permission would be granted to us would be only after the lapse of one year. And one year was such an interminable period for a person like my elder brother who had found himself so thinned in body and so gone down in health that it was hard to imagine he would last long. Every day was such a difficult day for that emaciated body to pull on with. As such I told my younger brother the bitterest truth in plain words. I said, "Bal, Truth is always harsh but I am sure you are not so weak-minded and cowardly as not to face it with fortitude. I see, therefore, no reason to conceal it from you. On the other hand, the sorrow that comes with perceptible and slow steps is easier to bear than any calamity that comes down upon us with a sudden blow. Be prepared to hear the worst of us any day in the future. I don't think we can pull on for a long time now. Do not forget, however, that even the unexpected sometimes happens. Who knows we may survive from this. But the chance are very remote for that. Take it that this is our last meeting together on this side of the world!" Every word that I uttered went like a burning brand to my heart. The face of Bal had completely darkened and his countenance fell. But he realised that words were like heart-beats, and harsh though they were, they were but echoes of truth. I had uttered them as the voice of my conscience, and he heard them intently. As I had by now completed my period of ten years in that prison, I had petitioned to the Government- to grant me the ticket to which I was entitled. The reply that I got was that I had been granted the ticket, but in the prison itself. To have a ticket itself meant freedom to live outside the prison, and to make a home and live in it by earning one's independent livelihood. Others had got such tickets on the expiry of three years in the Silver Jail. I got it at the end of ten years. But a ticket to live in the prison itself was indeed a travesty of terms. That really meant that I was to pass all my days in the prison itself, not in the free life of the Andamans, without a home of my own; and yet it was a ticket that they had given me! That was bitter irony indeed. That was lacerting a bruised heart. I was to be made an exception to all the rules operating in these islands; I was to get no benefit of any word or plea I had advanced to improve the lot of the prisoners in that jail.