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

yourself given orders that no prisoner shall meddle in the doings of another. When my
brother was ailing and I told you in his behalf that he should be removed to the hospital,
you had warned me that it was none of my business; you may be brothers outside, but
you come here as prisoners, you said then, and, therefore, none was to speak for another.
Why then should you expect me to intervene in this affair?" The third thing was that
when it was known that Chatarsingh was to be administered caning, I had interposed
along with other prisoners that he had been sufficiently punished for the violation of the
prison-regulations by the sound drubbing that the tindals and warders, rushing on him,
had given him. The Superintendent had escaped without injury; hence there was no need
or justification for caning Chatarsingh. Mr. Barrie pieced these facts together to frame up
a charge that I was at the bottom of the whole mischief. Chatarsingh was locked up in a
cage since that day for a number of years. A slip that came into the hands of Professor
Parmanand made him deduce and publish: "Mr. Barrie had worked up the whole matter.
He saw in the incident his chance to inflame the mind of the Superintendent against the
political prisoners as a class, and he simply rejoiced over it. And, therefore, casting all the
blame on Savarkar brothers he wanted to pluck out the very root of the discontent in that
prison. He, therefore, gave it abroad that Savarkars were very glad to foment such spirit
among them, and the officers were not without being a party to it." (See Professor
Parmanand's Reminiscences.)
I lose my health
Between the year 1915 and 1916, my health began to fail in this prison. My
constitution had held up against all hardships it had to bear since my arrest in London in
1910. I had to pass my life since that date in British prison, in the many prisons of India
and in the Andamans. I had to endure all sorts of inconveniences, of mental and physical
suffering added to my family Cares during the period. My constitution had already been
undermined by my exertions and worries in regard to my political activities and the
constant risks and anxieties imposed by these activities. Bad food, insanitary mode of
living, and hard labour in this prison had brought it to the breaking point by the year
1915. But from that year my digestive power had been interfered with by the unnutritious
and ill-cooked food it had to swallow and assimilate. I had, many times, drawn the
attention of the Superintendent to the state of my failing health; but none seemed to pay
any attention to it. Once or twice during the period I had high fever, but I was not sent to
the hospital for any treatment, and as soon as the fever had subsided, I was made to do
my usual work and to eat the same food. I developed dysentry out of this, but I was not
given a drop of milk which was given to the ordinary prisoners as a reward for their good
work. Hence I had to live on on ill-cooked rice and dal of the prison ration. The bread
served to us being almost raw, I gave up eating it and suffered from loss of weight. In
course of time, my stomach refused to digest dal. So I had to do without it and ate rice
with water as my curry on it. I continued on this diet for days in order to avoid an attack .
of dysentry. The dysentry gave a griping pain in the stomach, made me go for stools at
odd hours, and it was a great trouble to me in the cell where I lay confined. The fever had
become almost chronic, I had temperature every day, and the attacks of dysentery were
more frequent. At last I could not take rice even, for it was served halfraw every third or