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

up from the garbage. Small chips of coconut shells and cord had to be employed to
spread it out for reading. But even then we never failed to read it. We read in such a bit, a
portion of Gokhale's last speech on Free and Compulsory Education Bill—the finest
portion of it full of despair over the opposition of Government to its enactment. We read
also from the same source a report of his having introduced the Bill in the Imperial
Legislative Council. How it gladdened our hearts to know of it. The spread of free and
compulsory education all over India would dot the whole land with schools that will so
richly contribute to the literacy of India. A new mill opened; an old tax removed; a trial
going on; a bomb thrown revealing the underground activity of revolutionary societies; a
riot breaking out; a new book published; a new poet coming up;—whatever the news
conveyed to us in a far-off place like the Andamans, even though it be through such a
dirty source, it sent a thrill of joy through our hearts, for we felt that we were linked by it
to our dear country and it marked some progress for it. The political prisoner hungered
for such news, great and small, pleasant or unpleasant, for it gave us a topic for
discussion in that dark, lonely dungeon of the Andamans. Dear India, we, your forsaken
children, ever thought of you in the dreariness and rigour of that lonely residence. We
were rudely torn from your breast, Mother India, but we never forgot you; and we forgot
our personal cares and sorrows in thinking of you and reading about you. In that news we
felt your pulse and marked its beats. And we passed our years in this prison forecasting
her pains and joys, and experiencing them by the news that filtered down to us through
this channel.

Another source of information

In addition to Chalan and The Mail', we established another agency of
communication with the outside world. It was to send some of our prisoners detailed for
outside work to certain Indians settled in the colony of the Andamans. These gentlemen
were full of sympathy for us, but they were not habitual readers of newspapers. Even if
they agreed to read them for us, they could not communicate news from it to men whom
we sent to them, and these, again, were not so trained in mind as to carry the report
faithfully to us. There were very few among them to keep correspondence with us. And
even if they had dared it, harder still it was for any one in the prison to convey such
letters to us. For those caught in the act were liable to severest punishment. They lost
their jobs, and suffered in so many other ways. I had advised them not to do that. Even
then a few undertook that risk, imbued with the spirit of patriotism which they had
derived from their contact with political prisoners, and through the lectures they had
heard. They did it as a part of their duty. This did not happen during the first three years
of my life in that prison, and in the beginning we had to beg of them so much to do it for
us ! The political prisoners had nothing to give them in return. But they parted even with
a portion of their daily bread so that their appetite for news should be partially attended
to. They had semi-starved themselves that they might get some news every evening about
their dear motherland from the outside world.