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

It was noon then
We had all known that Ullaskar Dutt had been put in chains, but we had no
knowledge whatever, at that time, as was later on described in his own account of it, that
his mind had gone so weak as to see the hallucination that he has recorded in that
narrative or that he was burning with such high fever as to pass into delirium. We came
and stood in front of his room when we heard
a piercing cry and the confusion that followed
It shocked our heart. It was a usual occurrence in this prison, and the consequences were
ever the same. That was the reason of the fright. Five or six petty officers were found
ever, in such scene, to sit firmly on the chest of the poor rowdy prisoner locked up in his
room, thrash him thoroughly and then run away. And then the cry of helplessness
resounded through the whole block of that building. That was our usual experience.
Hence we feared that Ullas was, perhaps, meted out the same treatment. The slogan
among us about it was `to make one straight'.
Mr. Barrie and his myrmidons used to say openly that if they were "to make
straight" a prisoner or two of these political prisoners, everything would be calm and
quiet and normal in the jail they ruled. I asked the warder whose cry it was that I had
heard, and what all this noise about was. He said he did not know. Heart-rending cries,
one after another, had filled the whole atmosphere. I saw some of them dragging a man
from block No. 5. There were ten of them trying to lift him up and carrying him to the
hospital. The cry was coming from him. He cried, he fell on the ground, they were all in
an uproar! I saw this from a distance when the warder came running to me and whispered
that
Ullaskar had gone insane !
Yes! Burning in the hot sun with fever of 107 degrees, manacled and tied up, what else
could happen to him than the loss of his brain? The brain and the body, which had been
both outraged by excessive pressure upon them, had suddenly gone to pieces. Already he
was so weakened in mind that he would easily pass into delirium tremens. He saw
hallucinations and visions. The brain was out of gear and the body was out of joint. The
latter had repeated fits and convulsions, and ten persons could not control it. The doctor
somehow managed to take him to the hospital. Ullaskar was a young man full of laughter
and mirth. He would crack jokes and make funs while hearing in court the sentence of
death passed upon him. The spirit of humour did not forsake him even in his present state
of delirium. The whole night he sent piercing cries of pain that rent the whole building
around him. At the same time, like a ventriloquist, he filled the atmosphere with the