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

taking food. And I compelled him personally to break the fast. But the chord that was
snapped could not be made whole again. The excitement had gone to his head, his brain
was affected by it and within a month he became entirely mad. He was then removed to
the mental hospital where he lingered for a year. It is said that he had recovered from the
malady. But here is what we read in what was published after his death. It is from a
message that he had sent to his relatives. "Do not think that my soul is fast asleep in
heaven. If my love for the country is passionate and sincere, I shall take birth
immediately and return to my country to serve her. Be sure of it."
Poor Jotish, they say he was sane at the time of his death. But if he is the real
writer of this message, then I cannot say of him that he was sane, or that the madness had
been but a temporary phase of his life.
Lala Ramcharandas
One more instance of a fine, generous-hearted man, a staunch supporter of Hindu
Sanghatan, and a Panjabi political prisoner, who was similarly caught in the jaws of death
and had suffered in jail from consumption and insanity. This man had developed
sleeplessness as the result of shattered nerves, and continuous headache, along with many
other political prisoners at that time. I received a note from him in the hospital in which
he had written to me that he was tired of life, that, in the circumstances he had described
to me, he had no other alternative than committing suicide. I dissuaded him, for the time
being, from that reckless act, by pointing out to him that it was our duty to serve our
country by our suffering and we must live for it. My friend was spared to me by this
effort, and within two years he recovered his health and began to move about and to do
light work.
As if to give us, the political revolutionaries, one more blow during the desperate
condition of our life in this period, the superior officers sent me a letter to read, written
by Lala Har Dayal. Those who would formerly inflict upon us the punishment of a week's
detention in handcuffs for finding even a scrap of paper on our person, gave us matter to
read which they felt would be bad news for us. After the great war Lala Har Dayal had
written to the daily press that the revolutionaries of India should be let alone and she
should co-operate with England and strive to attain swaraj under her aegis, and that he
had been convinced that India could attain the goal only by that means. Mr. Barrie called
me and my friends and gave me that newspaper-cutting to read. And he asked what I
thought of it. I said, "I know that Lala Har Dayal is a sincere man; and I believe that what
he had written is an honest expression of his opinion." I returned to my place in the
hospital adding that I would say nothing more on it. In our next meeting I had taken that
letter as a subject for discussion with our political friends. I told my friends the whole
story of Har Dayal's life and the many phases through which it had passed. It was the
habit of his mind to be depressed for the time being by any adverse situation he had to
pass through, and what he said at the time was said by him honestly. And so he had