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

distance; happier he, who strove to bring it nearer; and happiest he, who has the fortune to enter it Would that I be one of that shining company! At least, some share of It will surely fall to me. What a glorious future that will be! The Present But the present? What is your state today? Dream, an empty dream, a foolish dream-"the golden morrow" that you so delusively paint on "the midnight sky of sorrow " Ages have rolled on since the Vedic Rishis had painted the golden scene. Man has ever been its dupe It offers us a gleam of light in the dark, the horrible night of the present Behold the sea, mighty, unfathomable, incomprehensible! A veritable giant in strength and power. And this little boat glides softly dancing on its bosom. But the sea lets her do it, that is all. He watches her play-the play of this gnat on his body. In a moment he may chafe and grow angry, and shake his giant body! A slap from him and she is finished So is the bold inventiveness of man If this mighty power rises and overspreads the land in a deluge, its single wave and spray are enough to shatter the boat to pieces, its Atlantean waves can swallow continents, and none shall know thereafter what was Asia and where was Europe! How puny is man! And of the race of this creature I am today the weakest and the most contemptible specimen. I am here squatting, In a corner, in the midst of the outlaws and the outcast of the world-the meanest and the self-condemned specimens of humanity on earth. I have to sit in a row with them, unseen, unwept and unsung. Manacled, gyved, bound on wrist and feet, here I am among them. So mean that the scavengers of the place are filled with pity; so abject that the hewers of wood and drawers of water could shout at me, "O, prisoner, get away from this place, sit there." And I am compelled to obey them'! The sea was calm, snoring like a giant. The boat was slowing down like the pulse of a dying man. The sun overhead was burning like a furnace. The weather was unbearably warm. We were very close to the Andamans. The travellers and officers behaved with me now as perfect strangers. They were reticent and curt. They kept themselves at a distance. The shadow of transportation had extended itself to cover and darken my countenance. End of Chapter V