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

sorrows and bereavements. Hail to you, Savarkar, may God bless you. The whole
country rejoices today and its joy knows no bounds."

I could not contain myself for the kind words spoken by them and for the
affectionate heart they betokened. And I replied, "There is one great omission in this
comparison. Rama went into exile, but Rama finished Ravana and won the battle. I have
gone into exile and suffered, but Ravana is still alive. I shall feel myself free only when
that is accomplished. With God's grace even that task will accomplish itself like many
other minor things to which I have put my hand. Some day, sometime, that also will
happen and you must realise the difference, and it must give you acute pain."

My relative had come to fetch me away. The prison-gate was opened and I came
out. What varied means I had used to secure my release! And how I felt then that I was
escaping, not through the open gate, but through its keyhole.

At last I was a free man. I looked about me and said to myself I had scored over
my life-sentence of fifty years. But who dares say that I may not be sent back to serve it
to the full? It was not yet time, methought, to bid final goodbye to this prison. I must not
forget it yet. Was I not free at Marseilles? Had I not made my escape? This may be but
the repetition of that experience, for India's battle for freedom has yet to be won, and the
struggle must go on.

Indulging in such kind of talk with my friends, and, smiling at the same time, I
entered the car and it moved on its wheels. It brought me into the land of the living and
had left behind my sentence to perish. The boundary line was crossed and I was both
alive and free.

The greetings that I received from the whole country, as I came back alive to
them, made me for a time oblivious of myself. On the very first day of my freedom, I was
floating, as it were, in the upper air of my country. When it hailed me as a hero and patted
me on the back, all the wounds inflicted on me during my fourteen years of prison-life
seemed to heal. And the only thing that remained with me were these reminiscences.

Therefore, as I had invoked the Goddess with the words "That another image", in
order to fortify myself against the intending shadow of death-sentence and to be prepared
to swallow the cup of poison it was holding out to my lips, I now recall the same Goddess
to my mind with deep gratitude for my survival and bowing my head take final leave of
her. I pray that the heavenly Goddess may go back, for the time being to her abode.

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End of Chapter XIII