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

Cellular Jail
21-9-1919
Port Blair
My dear brother,
I expected to hear from you as soon as you reached Bombay and so I
waited longer than usual. But as I have not heard from you uptil now I have
decided not to wait further in writing to you. Ever since my last letter to
you, my health has been just as it was when you saw me. After your going
back, for a week or so, it continued to be well and then again, either a
malarious fever or an attack of dysentry upsets it and takes a toll of lb. or
so, causing my weight to fall yet more and again it continues well for a
week or a fortnight further. Thus, have I been going on and on and
consequently my weight, which last year, when I wrote to you, was on the
average at 99 lbs., has for the last couple of months been at 96 lbs. and 95
lbs. In fact, my health would have been worse but for the little better food
and little better cell that have been allowed to me though too late, and
although my weight is rapidly going down yet, on the whole, my appetite is
improved and my stomach causes less complaints owing to the hospital diet
that I have been getting for the last 10 months or so. Moreover, in
consideration of my weakness and chronic malarious inroads, I have been
treated as a hospital patient and have been exempted from rigorous work.
So far as this jail life is concerned, I gladly state that the Superintendent has
been trying to put things as straight as he can after I wrote to you about the
rapid breaking down of my health. But it is, therefore, all the more
necessary and is all the more forcibly demonstrated how necessary it is to
remove me from this unhealthy and malarious climate, where in spite of
much attention of the jail superintendent, my health and my weight are ever
on the decline, and not a fortnight passes without a fever or some attack of
stomach complaints. I can assure you that the climate of this place is
acknowledged as a very unhealthy one and the life in a cellular jail in such a
climate as doubly dangerous to the health of even a strongly built man used
to hard labour throughout his life by the medical authorities themselves.
I do not know whether you in India know anything about the order that
was read out here on the day of the peace celebration in England,
concerning the Amnesty of prisoners. On that day or owing to the remission
granted on that day—some convicts have up to this time been released from
this convict colony. But so far as the political prisoners are concerned,