भारतीय इतिहास के ६ स्वर्णिम पृष्ठ (वीर सावरकर - विदेशी आक्रान्ताओं पर विजय गाथा)

speak with my brother? No! Being exempted from the compulsory and hard
labour? No! Being promoted to be a warder or cease to be locked up in the
cell? No! Better and hospitable treatment? No! More letters? No! Any visits
from home?—others get it after five years and I am in the 8th—No! Then if
you still ask what advantages in being promoted to 2nd class—well the
great one-that of being promoted to the second class!! Do you understand,
Doctor?
So far as to the advantages in the jail: but all this was bearable to me when
my health was comparatively sound. But this year, I must tell you that great
and counting disadvantage has been added to my lot, for my health is
utterly broken. You know I could not have used such language but I feel it
my bounden duty to do so. Confident am I that a student of Geeta and my
own brother would not be shaken under any calamities that the blind dame
may bring to us in her usual rounds and would stand squarely firm facing all
winds as they last. Brother! each year, one day which was joy unalloyed—
that was the day of writing the letter Home. This year even that is a partial
joy, for though I am writing to you to the immense delight of memory—all
the pleasant scenes and dear faces and grateful remembrances being made
alive—yet am feeling the strain of penning even such a letter as this! The
flesh complains and I could not go on without a rest! Last year March, I
weighed 119—this year, I weigh 98! They take the weight with which we
come here as the normal one; that is a wrong test for we come here after
rotting for years in the jails and custodies there. But even when I came here,
I was 111 lbs. Chronic dysentery due to disregard of the medical treatment
in the beginning has reduced me to a skeleton. Eight years I bore the burden
well. Innumerable and unknown hardships taxed my mettal and an
atmosphere of frowns and threats and sighs of demoralising and
disheartening stench tried to stifle the noble breath of Life—but God gave
me strength to stand and stand firm, and face it all for these eight years or
so. But now I feel the flesh has received wounds that are hard to heal and is
day by day pining away. Recently, the Medical Superintendent has been
paying a little special attention to my weakness and though I am still on
‘duty’, i.e. work and not in the hospital, yet I get hospital diet that is better
cooked, and eat only rice and am allowed milk and bread at present. It is
better a bit and hope it may improve. But what is likely is that this constant
debility may end in some fatal malady or that inevitable friend so well
known in jails, specially in Andamans—the Pthysis. Only one thing and one