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

length of making them jealous of one another Then I had to let them wash my clothes by
turn. My heart still goes out in gratitude to these political prisoners when I recall their
unstinted generosity and their deep friendship for me I also feel it my duty to put on
record in these pages all that I owe, in help and kindness, to my ordinary brethren in that
jail, and for the respect they ever paid to me. I can tell many a story of their
"unremembered acts of kindness and love". But I must not do so, and I record here my
deep gratitude to them all.
The mind revolts
To speak to none, to discuss with none, and to keep on looking at my naked body
so shabby, so dust-covered, so sweated by the work on the oil-mill, a work that I had to
do for the best part of the day. The body used to be full of perspiration, the dust thrown
up by the turning wheel of the mill as it crushed and ground down the pieces of dry
coconut fruit for oil, with other dust mixed up in it, had clung to it all over,-this was the
experience from which the mind revolted with disgust. It went on like this from hour to
hour, from day to day, and, who knows, it might continue from month to month, and
lengthen out into years I began to hate myself. "Why should I bear it?" my mind asked
me, "this your body and this your power, of what use are they to you now? What will
you, and what can you, do with them to liberate your country, to revive its spirit, and to
cover it with glory? Nothing, nothing at all, now and forever. Your body, your mind, your
will and your power-they are all dust now in this darkness of your prison-house. And no
more will you see light, no more the way out. The world knows not of your sufferings,
and will not care to know. What effect, then, can it have upon the world? Thus you are of
no use to yourself, no use to the world, nothing for the cause, nothing for mankind. A
burden you are on earth, why then live? Why not end it all? A cord, a noose, a pull, and
finis." So did my mind torture me and argue with me.
End it all
Your power to will and to persist was given to you to agitate the minds of your
people, not unlike Mount Meru of Indian legend given to the Gods and the Demons to
churn the ocean. Now they will be used by you to churn What? No better than to use the
rod of Mount Meru to churn the curds for butter-milk! Why disgrace your gifts thus?
Again and again the mind would revert to the same topic. "To live is futile; to die is
honour", it would persist in admonition. Novalis and other foreign writers have said much
in defence of suicide. It sometimes becomes an act of duty, as they preached it. And I
recalled all their sayings in this perturbed state of my mind.
One day, in the hottest part of the noon-and it was particularly warm that day-!
was turning the 'Kolu', almost panting for my breath. All of a sudden I felt I was fainting
and sat on the ground. My stomach had become hard like stone; the bowels within had