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

Kamala, Saptarshi and Gomantak. These three poems were published anonymously. The fourth was a miscellany of my minor poems which had also gone to the press but it contained so many misprints as I was not on the spot to see it through, and I stopped its publication altogether. The miscellany was entitled 'Virahoswasa", the sighs of separation. I had to withdraw the complete edition of that book from the market. 'Kamala', 'Saptarshi' and 'Mahasagara' were portions of the epic which I had contemplated to write. These survive as independent poems themselves, but the main tree of which they were to be branches is not yet even in the process of creation. It was been so with me—work that is undertaken under duress is often part finished and part destroyed. After the completion of these poems I wrote my work on Hinduism in English which my friend Mr. Kelkar of Nagpur was kind enough to publish. In the early days of my stay in the Ratnagiri jail I was not given a single book to read. After a time I got the works of Ramdas to read. Of these 'Dasabodha', and miscellaneous poems I had already perused in my younger days. But as my edition of Ramdas contained only these, I read them over and over again in the jail. Later on they gave me other books and also writing material so that I could do both reading and writing to my satisfaction. I read many great books from beginning to end during this period, like the life of Prithvirai, Puranas like 'Bhavishya Purana', and Vedic India by Das. One day I casually enquired after the health of my elder brother when I learnt that his condition was serious. My brother after being separated from me at Calcutta was put in the jail at Bijapur. My younger brother had gone to see him, when he was told that he could enter the prison and see his elder brother only if he would change his Khadi garments. My brother, of course, refused to accept the condition as highly insulting to himself. He carried the matter up to the Governor and got it cancelled. My elder brother suffered terribly in the jail at Bijapur. He was confined in a dark, damp and deserted room all by himself. I heard later on that a political convict had been seized with madness in that very jail. The room had a very bad reaction on my brother's mind and he was removed thence to Ahmedabad. Here he suffered less from solitariness, but he received no treatment and nursing for his growing disease. And at last his hardy constitution and his equally strong patience broke down under its terrible inroads. He was then removed from the jail to the prison-hospital. We got information about it through the daring of a political convict in that prison. So my younger brother visited the place and found my brother almost on his death-bed. But his fortitude was remarkable. Nothing could shake it.