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

TRANSLATOR'S NOTE
The book--The Story of my Transportation-is an English version of Mr. V. D.
Savarkar's original work in Marathi entitled, माझी जन्मठेप
It is the story of the great rebel's incarceration for ten years in the
Cellular-Silver-Jail of the Andamans. Swatantrya Vir Savarkar was sentenced by the
High Court of Bombay at the end of 1910 to fifty years' transportation to the Andamans
is the result of his revolutionary activities in India and England. Actually he was released
from that prison after a period of ten years, to finish up_with his confinement in the jails
at Ratnagiri and Yeravada. The story begins with with his prison life at Dongri and ends
with his last day in the jail at Yeravada.
The thrill and interest of the original narrative, interspersed as it is with musings
and meditations on topics of the day, and on others of abiding interest for life, with all the
insight and illumination that they bring along with them, I have tried to retain in the
English translation with such omissions and additions as the author himself has suggested
to form the basis of the translation. I have used for that purpose the method of free and
fair rendering of the original. I have not translated the original word for word, though I
have not departed materially from the text before me. I am glad to inform the reader that
the author himself has gone through the translation, and the English work appears before
him with the seal of the author's approval.
I need not dwell here on the life and life-work of Mr. V. D. Savarkar, work that is
well-known to all who know anything of the Hindu-Mahasabha and it’s functioning
during the last ten years. His life from young manhood to old age has been one long
sacrifice for the Ideal. And the story before the reader reveals the mood and temper, the
yearning and strenuousness, the patience and courage behind that dedication. One may
differ from Mr. Savarkar on many a point of detail and principle; but one cannot say, with
this book before him that he has not suffered and <sacrificed, and last but not the least, he
has not served the country by that sacrifice and suffering. As these page will reveal to the
reader, he is no believer in more sentiment; he does not believe in rousing mass
sentiment, like the mounting wave of a storm-tossed sea, only to help it tumble down in
the sands, and roll back wasted to the sea from which it mounted so high. He has
discussed in this his prison-diary, so to say, for it is not a diary at all, many questions of
public interest that must come home to the business and bosom of men in India, and
particularly to the business and bosom of patriots and leaders who have striven hard and
are striving hard today for unity and freedom in India. India is free, but she is riot free as
we should have liked it to be. We have still to toil and sweat in tears and blood to unite,
consolidate and build up for the fruition of that grace of freedom.
Savarkar is no narrow-minded Hindu Sanatanist. He does not swear by revolution,
armed or otherwise, for the sake of revolution. He is a hard-headed Maharashtrian and
thinker, and a far-sighted worker. He is a poet and man of letters, and an inspiring
speaker. He came back to politics in the evening of his spent-up life, the spring and
vitality of which had been all but sapped by the unmitigated hardships of his life as a