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

them. Thus ended the scuffle between the Jamadar and his victim—the poor convict who
refused to be deprived of his share of curds by the lordly Baluchi who posed as Jamadar
over him. The kafir's tuft of hair had pulled all right the beard of the Gaji Mussulman!
Thus we tried to save the Hindu prisoners from the tyranny and persecution of
Mirza Khan—the 'Chota Barrie' of the Silver Jail. Occasionally, the latter would put us in
a tight corner in order to take revenge for the lesson we had taught him, and we had to
suffer a great deal on that score. We shall refer to these incidents in the course of our
story. Suffice it to say here that only the political prisoners here dared to challenge him
and to defy his authority. Others were meek as dumb-driven cattle before him. Out of
these again only five to ten persons would carry complaints against him to the highest
authorities. What we seek to emphasize in this place is the fact that though the prison-
regulations were fair about the food to be given to the prisoners, they did not properly
safeguard against its loot before it reached the hands of the prisoners themselves. In
consequence, the prisoners were normally semi-starved while the petty officer, the
jamadar and the warder systematically fed fat upon them.
Apart from this, there was another drawback in it, and that was about its nutrition.
Give a man insufficient food to eat, let there be no bread in it, but whatever you give him
let it be properly cooked. Here the rice that was served was not well-boiled, and the bread
was half-baked or burnt. Do not serve bread in the form of half-baked dough and do not
give rice that is as good as raw. Many a time we had to pray to the authorities to remedy
this evil. Of course, the prison had a big kitchen for nearly eight hundred persons. But the
cooks and caterers in it were all dirty men and some of them stricken with foul and
dangerous diseases. Their dirty clothes, their perspiring bodies, the perspiration dripping
down into the big pots of curry and rice which they brought out to serve —all this we saw
with our own eyes. And we had to eat such food to satisfy our hunger. Neither the cooks
nor the servants were to blame in the matter. In the hot blazing sun they had to do the
work. And there were only five of them to cook for eight hunderd persons. They had
undertaken the task because they could themselves eat freely of it in the privacy of the
kitchen. And even if they refused to work, none could set them free from it as they were
taken from the prisoners themselves. In these circumstances there was nothing like
taste in the food
served to the prisoners. A man enters the prison and puts the word taste outside it. Again,
the prisoners were not royal guests to be treated to the choicest dishes. They were to be
made to feel, as we understood it so well, that they were cut off from their kith or kin;
that they were secluded in this dungeon for some crime either against society or
government. Therefore, taste was no question here. Moreover, there was yet no
distinction made between prisoners with simple imprisonment and convicts on hard
labour. Again, political prisoners had not there been yet put in a class apart. Hence, these
could not claim better food or different food from ordinary convicts condemned to