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

CHAPTER XIII The last night of my sentence 5th January 1924 was the last night of my imprisonment, of the sentence of transportation for life passed upon me. But I write it so definitely now. I could not say so on the night that I was in the Yeravada jail. If the night was going to be the last night in that jail and if I had known it to be so, if it was to be the very last in the period of sentence passed upon me by the court, how I would have drawn a pleasant picture of the night that was to follow! At the same hour tomorrow I would be stretching myself on a bed in a room with window all open to the light of the moon without, and without any warder patrolling along the corridor to disturb my sleep. And if that was not going to be my last night! Well then, may it not be so, for some night was sure to be my last night in the prison, the night that will take me away from this world for good. It was terribly cold that night. Though it was the month of January, we had a sharp shower of rain and we had no sufficient and warm clothing, no blankets to protect ourselves against that cold. Two coarse blankets were not enough to ward off the cold. And the clothing was altogether scanty and the shower of rain had added to the cold weather. Sprays of water began to pour in through the windows of my room, and sleep, in that condition, was impossible. Whatever clothes I had were wet all through. I put myself in a far-off corner of my room, folding up my body and wrapping the half-wet garments as close to it as I could. I kept on napping and dozing in that plight till daybreak. I had passed so many nights in prison in that condition, having my sleep as I coiled myself up in the corner of my cell. I remember this night vividly as it proved to be my last night in prison. With the morning began my usual routine. I was giving some ten political prisoners an account of Dingra's life which I had to leave unfinished. For on that day, I found no time to arrange for a full meeting and to lecture before it. Just then I received a call from the Superintendent to meet him in the office. At the same time a trusted man sent me a message that I was free. The political convicts who had stayed with me, worked with me, and suffered with me, in whose company I had passed so many years of my hard life in the Andamans, were full of joy at the news. Their eyes shone full of tears. But I trembled that I was leaving them behind in that prison. They heartily congratulated me. The Sikhs among

them, some of whom were sixty years old, said, "Babuji, come closer to us, do not forget us." And they locked me up in their embrace full of affection and reverence. They added, "You have been on transportation for life long before us. You had passed seven or eight years in the Andamans when we came there. Why then should you be sorry that you go out, while we remain behind! Is it not right that you should precede us? If you are free, we are as good as free. In fact, your freedom will pave the way for us. At least it will pave the road to freedom for our motherland." I answered, "It all depends upon the strength that God will give me to complete the task. But, my brothers, you will surely bear me out when I say that, ground down under the sufferings as I was during the fourteen long years that I spent in the Andamans and even to the last day here, I have not flinched or retracted from what I was preaching all my life. I have given you the stories of all our martyrs and I have advised all along to hold firm by our creed of violent resistance if circumstances were to force it upon us. I have kept the flag flying. When I heard the sentence passed upon me fourteen years ago, the words dancing upon my lips were the same that are dancing upon them today. I uttered them then, I have uttered them during my long stay in prison, and they come forth from my mouth today, to be carved on your heart and mind, and to ring in your ears for good. Let us say all of us, "Glory to the Goddess of Freedom; Victory to our Mother." We greeted one another with these words, we hailed our mother and then I parted from them. As soon as I stepped into the Office, the Superintendent read out to me the order of my release. It was that for five years after my release I was to take no part in politics and stay at Ratnagiri as a prisoner on parole. These two conditions were fundamental and there was no question of my dotting the i's and crossing the t's of these conditions. I was ordered to remove at once from Yeravada and proceed to Ratnagiri. The prisoner's gar- ments were taken off and my own dress was given back to me to wear instead. This was the final order to obey as a prisoner. I was stripped of my own clothing when I was sent to the jail at Dongri in 1910. I was given them back to wear again on the 6th of May 1924. I felt a feeling of vacancy coming on me and also a sense of relief accompanying it. It was a mood of melancholy dashed with joy. The Superintendent heartily con- gratulated me on the event. And he frankly warned me to take care in the future. It was Major Murray who did it. His parting words to me, "Take care of the future" summed up the secret of my melancholy. All the inmates of the prison, my fellow-countrymen, prisoners and officers, the youngest as well as the oldest, formed a circle round me. They said with one voice, "Savarkar you have been an exile from your country like Rama who went to the forest for fourteen years abandoning his beloved Ayodhya. You have passed through similar trials,

sorrows and bereavements. Hail to you, Savarkar, may God bless you. The whole country rejoices today and its joy knows no bounds."

I could not contain myself for the kind words spoken by them and for the affectionate heart they betokened. And I replied, "There is one great omission in this comparison. Rama went into exile, but Rama finished Ravana and won the battle. I have gone into exile and suffered, but Ravana is still alive. I shall feel myself free only when that is accomplished. With God's grace even that task will accomplish itself like many other minor things to which I have put my hand. Some day, sometime, that also will happen and you must realise the difference, and it must give you acute pain."

My relative had come to fetch me away. The prison-gate was opened and I came out. What varied means I had used to secure my release! And how I felt then that I was escaping, not through the open gate, but through its keyhole.

At last I was a free man. I looked about me and said to myself I had scored over my life-sentence of fifty years. But who dares say that I may not be sent back to serve it to the full? It was not yet time, methought, to bid final goodbye to this prison. I must not forget it yet. Was I not free at Marseilles? Had I not made my escape? This may be but the repetition of that experience, for India's battle for freedom has yet to be won, and the struggle must go on.

Indulging in such kind of talk with my friends, and, smiling at the same time, I entered the car and it moved on its wheels. It brought me into the land of the living and had left behind my sentence to perish. The boundary line was crossed and I was both alive and free.

The greetings that I received from the whole country, as I came back alive to them, made me for a time oblivious of myself. On the very first day of my freedom, I was floating, as it were, in the upper air of my country. When it hailed me as a hero and patted me on the back, all the wounds inflicted on me during my fourteen years of prison-life seemed to heal. And the only thing that remained with me were these reminiscences.

Therefore, as I had invoked the Goddess with the words "That another image", in order to fortify myself against the intending shadow of death-sentence and to be prepared to swallow the cup of poison it was holding out to my lips, I now recall the same Goddess to my mind with deep gratitude for my survival and bowing my head take final leave of her. I pray that the heavenly Goddess may go back, for the time being to her abode.

End of Chapter XIII

CHAPTER XIV Dear Reader The story is told. The curtain is rung down on it. Two life-sentences have been run. And I have brought together my recollections of them within the cover of this book. They are narrated in brief outline to you; they are put together within the narrowest compass. When I came into this world, God sent me in it on* a sort of life-sentence. It was the span of life allotted to me by Time to stay in this "prison-house of life." This story is but a chapter of that book of life—a longer story not yet ended. As I completed this chapter as a dedication to my great worship of the ideal, so the book of life may end as a dedication to it without break or faltering. Yes, I am free. The iron fetters on my feet are broken. But the chain of longing that binds my heart still remains. I have come out of the stone-walls which had buried me. But my soul is still imprisoned for my vision is not yet reached. The horizon that limits it is not yet crossed. It engirdles my soul and stifles it. Dear Reader, Surely you must have been wearied to hear my story, and put out by the endless repetitions in contains. But I am as much tired in writing, as you may begin reading it, this weary tale of my life. It has been a long and weary way for me also. How I, have suffered and how much fatigue of the mind I have passed through in putting it on paper! But I shall be more than paid for it, if you feel the same disgust for it that I have felt. For you can finish reading it in a day, while I had to live it for fourteen long years of transportation. And if the story is so tiresome, unendurable and disgusting to you, how much must be the living of it to me! Every moment of those fourteen years in that jail has been an agony of the soul and the body to me, and to my fellow-convicts in that jail. It was not only fatiguing, unbearable and futile to us all. It was equally or more excruciating as well, to them and to me. And it is only that you may know it, and feel the fatigue, the disgust and the pain of it, as we have felt it, that I have chosen to write it for you. I hope you will have through it some idea of what we have passed through, what we have endured. Dear Reader, I lay down my pen and take leave of you. My broken pen I cannot put aside, however, without telling you never to forget those who stuck to their task, disheartening and trying though it was; who embraced it to the last; who were nearly burnt up in that fiery ordeal; and who came out of it because nothing could burn them up completely in it, Lest you forget! Dear Reader, I say it to you as my last word, do not

forget them. For sooner or later the memory of them will serve you and be your salvation; nothing else will avail! End of Chapter XIV End of Book “My Transportation for Life” Composed and created by Chandrashekhar V.Sane Ebook © Chandrashekhar V.Sane