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

कृष्णाय वासुदेवाय हरये परमात्मने । प्रणतःक्लेशनाशाय गोविंदाय नमोस्तु ते ॥
Looking at him wistfully, I promised to carry out his behest.
They had departed. Without looking back, I walked inside, clanging my chains as
if I could wear them easily. But my mind was not so easy. It repeated vehemently the
words I had spoken to them and tried to frighten me. But my will tied it down as a wild
animal is tamed under the yoke. Exhaustion and fatigue overcame me completely. As
soon as I had entered my cell and the Havildar had locked the door on me, I collapsed on
the floor. I had almost fainted when I heard some noise over my head. I looked up and I
saw the young little ones of the two pigeons in the tiles above, cooing and crying with a
shrill wail. The mother-bird, I learnt, later, had been that very morning shot by the bullet
of our goaler, while she was carrying in her beak food for her youngsters. The little ones
waited and waited, and, in sheer desperateness and hunger, flapped their wings and were
raising that wail. Alas! It was a picture painted for my eyes of the suffering I was
experiencing. The Creator had chosen such a dark and tragic background for it in order to
spite me. The tension was too great to bear, and I passed into sleep where I lay in the
ground.
“Wake up, hoe dare you sleep? If the boss sees you sleeping during the hours of
work, he will rate us severely for your lapse.” So said the warder passing by my door,
while he beat the bars with his stick to rouse me from my stupor.
I got up, I picked up the coil; I began to pound it; I spinned it and I pulled out the
threads-the same dull process over and over again!
It must be a mouth now that I was serving my sentence in this gaol. All the same I
was being given the same food that I used to bet before I was declared a member of this
fraternity. Milk was, therefore, a part of my food even now. I had hardly finished my
food when the Havildar called me out, and I saw the Superintendent right in front of me.
“Take up your bedding”, he said. I felt within me that the time had come for my
transportation to the Andamans. I came down to the gate of the prison and saw the prison
van drawn up before it. I was put inside, the shutters were down, the door was closed, and
I could see nothing around me. Only the rumbling and rolling sound of the carriage
wheels told me that I was moving to some place outside the prison I had left behind.
Suddenly the van came to a standstill. I was let down, and, behold! I was in front of
another prison-gate. I passed through all the ceremonial of a prisoner to be freshly
ushered into its sanctum! I was put into the cell assigned to me for my stay in the new
place. This gaol was drearier and more lonely than the one I had left behind. I saw in the
distance a warder coming in my direction. Dinner was served. The warder, who put me in
this gaol, was not an Indian. He was a foreigner. Casting his look round about him, the