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

here precisely because the reader may grasp their significance later on. The Pathans, the Sindhis and the Baluchi Muslims, with a few exceptions, were, one and all, cruel and unscrupulous persons, and were full of fanatical hatred for the Hindus. Not so the Mussalmans from the Punjab, and less even than they, those of Bengal, Tamil province and Maharashtra. But the fanatical section always belittled and held up to laughter their co-religionists from other parts of India. It twitted them as "half kafirs." And this constant jibe compelled them, very often and perhaps Inevitably, to follow in the foot-steps of their wicked brethren. That emulation did not help them, however, to ingratiate themselves into the favour of their masters, the European Officers. They were always inclined to favour those who were, according to them, their best servants, that is, tyrants and persecutors of prisoners in their charge.

That was one of the reasons for placing me under the close supervision of the most seasoned of these Pathan warders. He worse the designation of Jamadar or Petty Officer, that is a warder, who was himself a prisoner, promoted to a higher rank in the settlement There were three such Jamadars appointed to the task of keeping a close supervision on my movements. The Jamadar who had brought me to my quarters in this crawl, handed me over to these warders, closed the room, locked it, and went away.

Next morning these warders presented themselves before my room and announced that the Sahib was coming and I was to stand up. I came to the door, which was nothing but a barred entrance into my room. Mr. Barrie had come up with his European friends. He had acquired a special Importance with them since my arrival in this gaol. The Europeans in the locality, men and women, were naturally curious to see me and talk to me. And for that purpose they had to burn incense before the demi-god, Mr. Carrie. Mr. Barrie pretended that he was taking them to my room under great risk, and they had to request him, again and again, before he would accede to their importunities. He brought them here under great secrecy, and showed me to them from a distance and, sometimes, allowed them to approach me closer, all the whale making a show that he had done them a great favour and that he was indeed anxious how to explain it to his superiors or how to get over the hurdle. With a solemn air he marched them away always ending with the expostulation: "That will do ! That will do." The intending visitors had to go to Mr. Barrie's bungalow fifteen tames over, before he would yield to their cajoling. I know many a European sergeant and his wife and daughter who had to flatter him thus.

The word "Sarkar" made me wake up and stand before the door according to prison regulations. The first thing I could see through the barred entrance was not Mr. Barrie but the protruding part of his nether region- the stomach. For it bulged out defiant of the world, and ran before him, as it were, to display its circumambient rotundity, not dissimilar to the spherical apparatus in the class-room to explain to the school-children the size and shape of mother Earth Over this circumference, Mr. Barrie had fled his leather-belt. And it marked faithfully the equatorial line on the Earth's surface.