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

of political prisoners was as I have described above. This I came to learn within a month's
time of my being in that prison. Some of these prisoners were definitely against the
policy of strike as a matter of conviction. Others had decided to give implicit obedience.
These Mr. Barrie had used to sow dissensions between the strikers, and to bring home to
them that strikes were a great blunder. Between stern resisters who would use abuse for
abuse, insolence against insolence, he sought, through these renegades, to create aversion
for such tactics, as being quite unbecoming to them as well-bred young men. Naturally
they desired to seek my opinion on all these matters. Not they alone but Mr. Barrie
himself was anxious to know what I thought of it. He had striven his hardest to pump me
out upon the whole question. After a fortnight of close and secluded life in my cell, he
brought me down on the shawl nearby, and on its ground-floor to work there during the
day.
Picking Oakum
There I was to pick one pound of oakum on the first day. Usually the piece of
work to do for an ordinary prisoner is no less than one and half or two pounds of oakum.
Mr. Barrie declared that it was a favour done to me as a special case and in consideration
of my superior status. So he harangued briefly to his listeners. The work may be less and
Inspired by added kindness, as Mr. Barrie sought to put it; but this kindness did not make
the oakum less hard for my hands to ply with, and there was no kindness in it to soften
the labour for me My muscles were swollen by it and the pain it gave me was unbearable
My palms blistered and blood flowed from its cracks. I showed them to the
Superintendent and asked him if he could not change it I exhorted him to give me a
respite from it for a few days at least To it the inevitable answer was, "that is the
experience of all of them here. Take it as a favour that we gave you one pound to do, and
not like others, one and half or two pounds a day." And the Superintendent went away I
had to do the picking all the same. And the material I had picked was stained with the
drops of my blood Mr. Barrie was careful to note if it was one pound He did not care to
note the drops that had stained it. He had no time for such attention.
Rascals! I will cane you
And yet not a day passed when he had not exchanged a few words with me.
Gradually he Introduced, in his ten minutes' daily talk with me, reference to the attitude
of political prisoners under him Others were strictly banned from carrying information
from one of them to the other or even to convey greetings from one to other. And if any
one was caught in the act, the punishment visited upon him was reduction from his post
as a warder or a week's hard labour on the oil-mill. But the same information Mr. Barrie
was free to carry from one member to another; only it was to be an information to sow
dissension and to create division among them. Mr. Barrie knew well that I had all the
past information about these prisoners and it had come to me inspite of his strict watch to
the contrary. Why not then put forth one's own point of view? So had Mr. Barrie thought