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

attention particularly to the heroic deeds of the past. acquaint them with the lives of its
outstanding personalities, and of epoch-makers in that history. I then took them similarly
through a course of European history. told them of heroes like Napoleon, Mazzini and
Garibaldi and gave them an insight into the contemporary history of tottering Russia and
the great revolution that was going on there against its monarchy. From that course in
very broad outline, I took them in a course on the elements of economics, politics and
theory of government. The lectures were followed by discussion and the political
prisoners who would gather together for them began to take deep Interest in the subject.
As their number Increased in the prison, and as the wave of strike and resistance. fight
and opposition, spread like wild fire among them, the Officers, just to pacify them,
allowed us to sit together for a longer time, read what we liked, talk as we chose, so that
we may work and not trouble them any further. At this stage mere conversation of an
evening took a turn into a regular meeting for settled study.

The Sunday Meeting

Throughout the week we continued to meet every evening at our appointed place
on the reservoir. But, in addition, on every Sunday morning till the hour of nine I used to
sit together with nine or ten of them who happened to be in my immediate neighbourhood
and gave them regular lessons in subjects which I have already mentioned. At nine we
were taken out for weighing our bodies or cutting grass. I used to allot to each of them a
particular subject for study. The student had just to tell me what he already knew about it.
Then I carried on discussion with him. And we ended with the singing of our national
song This meeting was all a hurried business and not like an elaborate study in a class-
room. For, in the very midst of it, some one would announce the arrival of Mr. Barrie, or
we were afraid that a jamadar would appear suddenly on the scene. Then we were all told
off to cut grass, and asked to disperse. As soon as we smelt a cat, we ran helter-skelter to
our holes, like the proverbial mice. The lecturer and the audience had both to cut short the
meeting, and distribute themselves, some on the field, some behind the iron-sheets and
some to clean their pots and pans. And we met again as soon as the alarm was no more,
as described in the famous lines of the poet, "Let the legions thunder past and plunged in
deep thought again. " After their rout some faint-hearted individuals would point out in
self-condemnation, the futility of it all, when I had to remand them of the prayers of the
early flying Christians. When these had to follow Christ, in defiance of the tyranny of the
Romans and the persecution of the Jews, they lived up to his Commandments by praying
in catacombs, round the graveyard and in prison vaults, whenever five of them could
assemble and hearten one another Sometime they had just knelt down in these secret
places lifting up their faces to God, when they would hear the foot-falls of the Roman
legion pursuing them, and instantly they had to disperse and hide themselves. But, when
it had passed, by they would return and pray as before.