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

Kamala, Saptarshi and Gomantak.
These three poems were published anonymously. The fourth was a miscellany of
my minor poems which had also gone to the press but it contained so many misprints as I
was not on the spot to see it through, and I stopped its publication altogether. The
miscellany was entitled 'Virahoswasa", the sighs of separation. I had to withdraw the
complete edition of that book from the market. 'Kamala', 'Saptarshi' and 'Mahasagara'
were portions of the epic which I had contemplated to write. These survive as
independent poems themselves, but the main tree of which they were to be branches is
not yet even in the process of creation. It was been so with me—work that is undertaken
under duress is often part finished and part destroyed.
After the completion of these poems I wrote my work on Hinduism in English
which my friend Mr. Kelkar of Nagpur was kind enough to publish.
In the early days of my stay in the Ratnagiri jail I was not given a single book to
read. After a time I got the works of Ramdas to read. Of these 'Dasabodha', and
miscellaneous poems I had already perused in my younger days. But as my edition of
Ramdas contained only these, I read them over and over again in the jail. Later on they
gave me other books and also writing material so that I could do both reading and writing
to my satisfaction. I read many great books from beginning to end during this period, like
the life of Prithvirai, Puranas like 'Bhavishya Purana', and Vedic India by Das.
One day I casually enquired after the health of my elder brother when I learnt that
his condition was serious. My brother after being separated from me at Calcutta was put
in the jail at Bijapur. My younger brother had gone to see him, when he was told that he
could enter the prison and see his elder brother only if he would change his Khadi
garments.
My brother, of course, refused to accept the condition as highly insulting to
himself. He carried the matter up to the Governor and got it cancelled. My elder brother
suffered terribly in the jail at Bijapur. He was confined in a dark, damp and deserted
room all by himself. I heard later on that a political convict had been seized with madness
in that very jail. The room had a very bad reaction on my brother's mind and he was
removed thence to Ahmedabad. Here he suffered less from solitariness, but he received
no treatment and nursing for his growing disease. And at last his hardy constitution and
his equally strong patience broke down under its terrible inroads. He was then removed
from the jail to the prison-hospital. We got information about it through the daring of a
political convict in that prison. So my younger brother visited the place and found my
brother almost on his death-bed. But his fortitude was remarkable. Nothing could shake
it.