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

“ Of course I had my fill. But I have taken such things as are common to all prisoners here. For, who knows, I may be put tomorrow to do the work that they do now. Then I may not get the food that I have now. The dirty food of a regular prisoner is to be my lot henceforward. Why not, then, make friends with it from now? It will last me for life.” I replied with a smile. To it the Officer impatiently retorted, “ No, no, that shall not be. The order has already been received, I hear to send you back to France. You, to serve your sentence as a prisoner! Never, never. God will not grant it.” At that instant a watchman came up running, and said that the Jamadar was following. The door was slammed. The warder and his attendant proceeded further. Soon after came the Superintendent and informed me, albeit courteously that thenceforward I was to wear the prisoner’s uniform and would be given the food he ate. He conveyed the news that my life-sentence of fifty years commenced from that day. I got up, took off the clothes I had worn so far, and began putting on those that I was to wear as a prisoner. A thrill of horror vibrated through my whole being. These clothes, I felt, I was to use all my life. No longer I was to part from them. Perhaps in these very clothes my dead body may be taken out from the prison door. Faint, shadowy thoughts these-but the mind was overcast by them. The Superintendent kept on walking on sundry things and I tries to divert my mind by engaging myself in that conversation. As if not to give me the solace I was seeking for, a sepoy brought to the Superintendent what looked like an iron plate. It was the badge, with the number marked on it, which a prisoner has to wear on his breast. The badge shows the date of his release. What was my date? Am I ever to be free, or death alone was to be the date of my release? I cast my look on the badge and its number with mingled feelings on longing and despair, humour and curiosity. The year of my discharge was 1960. for a moment I did not take in the full significance of that writing. But, in a minute or two, it flashed upon my mind. I was sentenced in 1941 and I shall have my discharge in 1960! The British Officer grimly observed, “No fear about it, the benign government was to release you in the year 1960!” To him I replied in the same vein, “But Death is kinder. What if it lets me off much earlier?”