भारतीय इतिहास के ६ स्वर्णिम पृष्ठ (वीर सावरकर - विदेशी आक्रान्ताओं पर विजय गाथा)

Cellular Jail 6-7-1916 Port Blair My beloved Bal and sweet Shanta, Please accept my and my brother’s heartiest congratulations upon your entering the second stage of life—the life of wedded love. Nobly hast thou, dear Bal! fulfilled the first stage of your life—the stage of self-culture and self-sacrifice. Thou possessest the golden keys to the treasured wealth of knowledge, both ancient and modern, in the acquaintance with Sanskrit and English languages. The final examination that you have passed in Medicine is bound to stand you in good stead, in any part of the world and in spite of any laws passed by a narrow misguided legislature; while your pen has already made its influence felt in Maharastra in both the fields of prose and poetry. On the other hand, the responsibilities and duties of that stage could not have been better discharged and fulfilled. When the storm began to gather over our Mother, it found you unmoved and firm at your post—it burst and left you undaunted and true, and among the many faithless yet faithful! The enthusiasm, to awaken which amongst their youth, Europe has been holding before their eyes the glories of iron crosses and Victoria crosses and unrolling rolls of honour—that enthusiasm and faith had been displayed by you, who discarded even the reward of public acclamation; nobly therefore hast thou completed the first stage of your life and now enter ye-, dear Bal and beloved Shanta!—on the happiest and most exalted stage of life, the life of wedded love. May thy path, dear Bal, be strewn with roses and may thy youth, dear Shanta, blossom forth in Amaranthuses and gold! Domestic happiness—the only bliss of paradise that has survived its fall’ may bless your nuptial shed! ‘मधुनक्तमुतोषसि मधुमत् पार्थिवं रज: (The dawn, the evening sweet and grateful be the Earth)!! You perhaps remember that in one of my letters, I had just dropped a suggestion to the effect that it would not have surprised me if some one amongst the clever Bengalis had stolen your heart! After all, the expected had very nearly happened. For though I long to see the day, when inter- provincial marriages amongst the Hindus would throw down the artificial and harmful barriers of castes and creeds and the Great River of Life—our Hindu life would, having freed itself of all bogs and sands, flow in an ever fresh and mighty current-uninterrupted and interruptible—still the first and