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

Chief of the Quinine Depot As soon as he took office he removed me from my cell and appointed me as a chief in charge of the quinine factory in that jail. He gave me permission to teach boys and other workers in that factory. I began to arrange and add to the library at Yeravada as I had done at Ratnagiri. I removed the worm-eaten books from the boxes which were the library at Yeravada and replaced them by new ones. I made a complete list of books I needed and got permission of the Government to purchase them for the library. Thus I had arranged to stock in the Yeravada library the choicest books in Marathi and Hindi languages. I do not know if the books that I had ordered had actually come in that library, for I did not stay at Yeravada long after my proposal. Shuddhi at Yeravada Along with other activities in that jail, I also started the Shuddhi movement there. I only mention one instance as a specimen of that work. One of the officers here hailed from Madras and dressed himself in tip-top European style. He was a Christian and was proud of his changed religion. He was the doctor of our prison. We had long discussions on the subject and at last he was inclined to be reconverted to Hinduism. But he was a married man and had Christian wife. While young the gentleman had dined once or twice with a Christian and so Hindu Brahmins had ex-communicated him. All these facts he had revealed to me frankly in the process of our conversation and discussions with the result that he had decided to become a Hindu. But what was to be done after his con- version about a wife to set up a home for him? His Christian wife had almost deserted him. He went straight with a note from me to my younger brother in Bombay. And the Hindu Missionary Society arranged for his reconversion. In Bombay he happened to know a nurse who was a Christian like himself. She agreed to be a Hindu along with him. She was an unmarried woman, so both agreed to be united in wedlock, the woman in need of a husband and the man in need of a wife. So their Shuddhi and marriage took place in Bombay on the same day under the auspices of the Hindu Missionary Society. The doctor returned to Yeravada with his new wife dressed as a Hindu. With his religion he had left behind his European dress. Instead of a hat he had put on a turban and dhoti had displaced the trousers. Verily he looked like a Poona Brahmin, when he appeared at Yeravada with his new dress. His door-step was adorned with 'Rangoli'. And the portraits of Ram and Krishna hung on his walls. The vermilion paste marked the forehead of the wife while the 'tilaka' shone on the brow of the husband. The doctor put me the following question, "Mr. Savarkar, would you mind telling me what more I need to be distinguished as a Hindu?" "Nothing more", I answered with a smile, "well, you may finish it with a 'puja' of Satyanarayana."