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

pension. Let us study history, political science, science, economy, live
worthily in this world, fulfil the “गृहस्थाश्रम—the house-holders’s duties
—and then the वानप्रस्थाश्रम and its philosophic dawn might come. And
whatever these works are meant to do, they might be left to be written by
widows, old men and pensioners out of offices. They should live in the
past old works and old puzzles of God and soul and man. The young, the
youth—why not live in the future? Talk of Vedanta—Benares has not
produced a single martyr and they cannot give up a farthing for their
fatherland!!!
And now, something about myself here. Well, during the last year, I had
no illness, whatever. My health is excellent and my weight, as yet,
unreduced and that is a feat, is it not? In this tiny cellular sanitarium, I get
up early, take regular amount of food regularly, and go to bed early—in
fact have to do all these things and so early to bed and early to rise is
making me healthy—(though not)—‘wealthy and wise’! In fact you, Oh!
would-be-Doctor Saheb! could not have devised a better time table for
your patients. And, good as is the health of my body, the health of my
mind is better still. Any work hard or mean, I ply myself to humming
every now and then, ‘स्वे स्वे कर्मण्यभिरतः संसिद्धिं लभते नर’ : शङ्क
‘यतः प्रवृत्तिर्भूतानां येन सर्वमिदं ततम्। स्वकर्मणा तमभ्यर्च्य
सिद्धिं विंदन्ति मानवा’ or ‘सर्वारंभा हि दोषेण
धूमेनाग्निरिवावृताः!!And every evening—for nowadays I am in a cell, a
bit of the sky is visible from—I watch the glorious sunset and the pomp of
light and shade and loose myself in the rose and the lilly, and the lilac of
the west; thinking now this and now that; from the poets
‘कतस्तटतमालमालिनीम्। पश्य धातुरसनिम्नगामिच’ or ‘तेन
मानिनि ममात्र गौरवम्ं to the profoundest fancies of idealist
philosophers, that all that seems is but subjective affection and there is
nothing objective to correspond to it—at least we do not know of it. And
my mind is perfectly happy—happy even as it was in his company there—
with her company there!! And if at times, the mind like a child gets silly
and simply will weep—then the Grand Reason steps in and smiles ‘well
sweet heart, what ails thee? What un-known you suffer? How silly! Did
you want to ride on the crest of ambition, drive in the chariot of self-

glorification yourself? If you did, well, then you deserved to be baffled
and defeated in such a selfish and demoralising ambition! But God and I
know you did not covet any reward personally—no, neither fame nor
name nor land nor lucre, nay, not even happiness. The only thing you
wanted was to be privileged to suffer most! At least, that is what you used
to say in my presence—to sacrifice most, for others, for humanity. Then
lo! where is the disappointment? you have done ‘यज्ञम् सर्वस्वदक्षिणम्’
are suffering without end, without limitation of time! Not a minute, not an
action of yours that is not dedicated to the purification of the race through
suffering. Then rejoice! What could you have done better than this? And
the mind plumes its feathers again, and soars, and rises and sings once
more! But if ever the mind still goes on still puffing up its little ego, then
the Grandam takes it out and showing the world says: ‘There are the
Himalayas! There was a time that they were not there and a time there will
come when they shall not be there!!! And this moon and this solar system
and the Sidereal!! It is too much then for that little mind; it forgets itself, is
absorbed in the Universe—ashamed of its self-importance and self-care!!!’
So my beloved Bal, both of us here are in perfect health of body and mind.
Do not care at all about us. The only thing that we feel still individually
attaches us to this world is thy health and safety. So if you guarantee these
two—of course, try your best and then we do not care for the result—we
shall be happiest. As yet jail has left no mark, no shadow on us for
anything, worse—and all this health is in spite of circumstances and not in
virtue of them. You have written about the petition you sent to the
authorities here enquiring about the time of visit. Well, in fact, I ought to
have been, according to the practice here, released from this Cellular Jail
and allowed to live on the island. My ‘behaviour’ is admittedly good. But
then neither of us is released. I am trying to request the Government to
reconsider this and you, too, whenever you know anything be writing to the
authorities here. Very soon our dearest Baba will have done his 5 years and
you can then claim a visit. But our release and permission to bring our
relations here to live with us, the authorities here can do very little, though
they can do every thing in the case of other convicts. Nor are they very
much to be blamed, for orders we suppose come directly from the Indian
Government. So, you better send a petition to the Indian Government
whenever you fail to know anything directly from the authorities here. But
even as it is, do not worry yourself about any arrangements concerning us.

The Government will do in all likelihood all that justice demands
themselves. And we shall be reminding them every now and then. What
else have we to do? You only care for your health and safety. I am glad you
remember what I told you in the High Court.
Assure our beloved Yamuna that these four years will not pass without
ushering the dawn of a happier day. So let that noble heart and that heart—
our dearest Vahini hold on! Hold on even as they have been doing up to
this time!! Let them read all मराठी literature and not only the old
mythological works but new and current and living streams of life's
expression in the West and the East. It was a sad pride that I felt when I
heard the noble death of our noble comrade and brother Sakharam.$^1$ You
know it was in the High School days that we first saw each other! He lived
bravely—died bravely. What more can one wish for oneself! His wife—
dear Janki Vahini—well I have not seen her and yet have seen her through
your pen-pictures. All that I feel for her is that she is not poor, not ill-
starred—but called upon to play the holiest part in life even because it is
the lanliest! Remember me to her. And how is tiny Vasant? Will the great
little man write me a word? He is now some 7 years old, is he not? And his
mother? Oh! I saw her for the last time in the Dongri jail A sister is one of
the richest gifts that a man can have!! Give my love to her and a sweet kiss
to that great little gentleman—my Vasant! Also remember me to all our
relations—one and all—and above all to her who though not a relation and
even because she is not a relation, whom I used to call jokingly the mother
of the party and whom now in all seriousness and gratefulness, 1 call my
own mother, and who is standing by you and remembers me—give her my
most grateful regards and loving remembrances—names not to utter which
seems a sacrilege and yet which cannot be uttered, for their own sake,
from a prison wherein not only legs but tongues too are fettered! Well you
know them all. I told you who were nearest to my heart as my most
intimate friends—to all of them give my love, my fresher love! If some of
them voluntarily ask you to be particularized in letters to me from you, I
will then umburden my heart and name them. The books that are to be sent
to me, I write down here. The time is up and so my sweetest Bal, I am,
with most reluctant steps receding and tearing myself away from you.
Your own brother
TATYA

. □

Celluar Jail
9-3-1915
Port Blair
Best beloved Bal,
And once again, my pen after a Ripvanwincle’s sleep is wakened and
hastens to acknowledge the receipt of your letter received some 7-8 months
ago. To have a letter from you is like to see you: for partly owing to the
cinematographic flashes with which your letter abounds and partly owing to
the wonderful faculty, with which the solitude of a prison, endows the
power of hearing in man-faculty, which enables one to visualize the thing
heard, as in the case of those born blind. Whenever I hear from you, I
succeed in almost seeing you and all those dear faces and dear scenes that
constitute our happy little home on the banks of the musical Godavari. Our
dearest brother Baba and myself are happy in seeing you doing well and as
long as you take care of your health and try your best to lead a life, at once
noble and happy and healthy, you need not be anxious about our health,
mental and physical. The books that you sent last year were 16 and this
year’s 13 (4 English 2 Oct. 2 Nov. The rest Sanskrit and Vernacular. Please
do write whether this is correct. Next time you send a parcel, please do send
a list with it in your own handwriting, so that we may be able to check the
postal delivery. I was glad to read समाज-रहस्य (why you sent two copies
of it?). It is a very good novel. One thing more—among the social
institutions—the greatest curse of India is the system of castes. The mighty
current of Hindu life is being threatened to perish in bogs and sands. It is no
good saying: ‘We will reduce it to four caste-system first. That would not
and should not be. It must be swept away, root and branch.’ The best means
to that effect is a crusade against it, in all forms of literature, especially
drama and novel. Every true patriot should cease to have double dealing
and speak out his mind clearly and act up to it. The only care to be taken
being not to pay so much attention and not to create so much fuss in this
side-issue and our internal relation as to forget and hamper and thwart the
issue—our relation with the world—but for the right adjustment of which,
no internal questions can be satisfactorily solved, or solved to any
substantial purpose. So, I shall like to have a number of goodly written
novels like the समाज-रहस्य, which would attack this effete and unjust
social curse. It had done much good in the past, but it is dead now. So let us

bury it, with tears if you like. I am glad to hear that the Government is
going to allow you to see me this year. Please do thank the authorities for it.
But I am firmly of opinion that dear Vahini should not be put to troubles of
the voyage this year. You should come alone and when you see all the
facilities or otherwise here and know the best way to bring her, then the
next time you come to see me, you may bring her, and dear Mai too. I feel it
a duty to forego the inestimable pleasure of seeing those dearest ones this
year for the sake of their convenience. So, please come alone this year.
It sent a thrill of delight in my heart to hear that the Indian troops were
allowed to go to Europe, in their thousands to fight against the best military
power in the world and that they had acquainted themselves with such
splendour and were covered with military glory. Thank God! Manliness,
after all, is not dead yet in the land! And what a funny thing! We have been
trying our best to encourage foreign travel and used to congratulate
ourselves if a dozen could be sent a year! And now Providence has done
what we could not—thousands of Hindus, orthodox like the Gurkhas and
Rajputs and reformed like the Shikhs have crossed the sea and under the
Government patronage! Now let our Pandits sit hatching over the eggs of
शास्त्रार्थ to see if foreign travel is permissible to the Hindus or not.
Permissible or not, the Hindus have crossed the sea, and in crossing it, they
have crossed an epoch! What the crusades have done for Europe by
bringing it in contact with the superior civilization of Asia, this conflict with
the Europeans of our Hindu troops across the seas will do for India—for
Asia.
As for the petition, that is made for the release of Political prisoners in the
Punjab we can hardly thank them sufficiently for this, their charitable deed.
You may be knowing by this time that some of us have already volunteered,
to go to the front of the War and I am glad to inform you that Government
have made a special note of it, though no answer could come as yet.
By the by, please do write of the rumour that some M.P. had asked a
question in the Parliament about me, or some of us before the war broke
out, be true and if so the particulars of it. Did you get the poems on Guru
and Ravi?
It pained me very much to hear, that Hon. Gokhale was dead. He was,
after all, a great patriot. True, at times, especially in panics, he used to say
and do things, which he himself must have been ashamed of a few months
after, to own. But then, his life was dedicated to the service of Motherland

and there was very little personal and selfish about him. All along his life,
he served Her and for the good of Her, as he saw it. How anxious I was to
see him, before death parted us; and to compare notes as he had said to me
in London, when we saw each other for the last time. We could not agree on
certain points and he said ‘well Mr. Savarkar, come! We will see each other
after some six years and then would compare notes’! Maharashtra must
send some one—worthier than he—to his place in Councils. If every Indian
could do at least as much as he did!
Next time you send books, please send the novels जन्मभूमि and गौतम,
which brother is very eager to read. I was very much afraid that owing to
the invasion of France, you would be unable to hear from Madame Cama-
who had been ever since my coming here a second mother to you and who
had so nobly and so faithfully stood by us in the darkest hour of our life.
But I was very glad to be assured that she, even in the midst of this world-
hubbub, remembered you and had regularly been sending letters to you. At
the touch of one such faithful, noble, unshaken loving hand, one’s heart
recovers its belief in Humanity—belief rudely shaken by the disappearance
of the closest and by the treachery of the truest and by the indifference of
the dearest. It is a pity I can not write to the dear lady and tell her how I
esteem her noble life and her solicitude for the needy and the distressed and
love and long to see her once more: but as it is, please give to her all my
esteem and respects, before you give them to any of our relatives: for what
wonder they do something for us? Wonder is how she does and does so
much.
While I am reading the books you sent, I see that in the Telugu provinces,
the new life that is struggling to find expression all over India, has been
sweeping over our bretheren there. The Andhra-Sabha आंध्रसभा is a great
and grand movement but the question of getting that province separated
from the Tamil one is not ennobling. But what pained me most and what
was but a natural corollary from the desire of petty provincialisms was that
the national shouts were आंध्र माता की जय! In this little thing and straw,
we see the direction of an ominus wind to come. This is one of the
unhealthy reactions of the grand Swadeshi movement and must be corrected
before it is too late. The Swadeshi connected in Bengal with the little
partition question brought in this reaction. Every province wants to be
separated, and shouts and invokes long life to itself! But how can the

province live unless the Nation lives? They all—Maharashtra, Bengal,
Madras—are great and will live long but through Her-India! So let us not
say आंध्र माताकी but भारतमाता की जय of whom आंध्र is only a limb,
and let us sing not ‘वंग आभार’ इूहह ‘हिंद आभार’! All provinces and
petty languages, instead of asking to be separated, should try to get
amalgamated and remove the barriers that yet remain and destroy the
confusion of tongues and not to hug to it. Smaller nationalities! Is not
Belgium a sufficeint warning? The greatest good that the British
Government has done without meaning it, is to, melt and mould the
disintegrating factions of our Motherland and hammer us into one people.
Now instead of trying to remove whatever stands in the way of its
consummation, we are, on the one hand, hugging to the fetters that were the
necessary price of this boon and trying to turn the very boon into a curse, on
the other.
Now I think I had written all that I felt and wanted to ask about your letter
and the books you sent. Next time you please send me the books the list of
which I subjoin. Instead of sending a parcel, you may bring them with you
if you come before September 1st. If not, send a parcel. Please do answer
this letter as soon as you have carried the necessary communication with
our friends. I am extremely glad that you could see the gentleman, you
refered to in your letter. I knew you would like each other very soon, for
birds of the same feathers gather together. Please give my affection and best
remembrances to him. I remember him every now and then. How is our
dear Professor getting on? My heart gladdens at the thought that by this
time, one more bird must have come back to that dear little nest after
sustaining a night through dreary deserts of burning sands, where no drop
cools the thirsty heart and no dew vivifies the parched flower of hope. In his
release and the release of so many of them, I feel as if my own partial
release had come. If poor dear Sakharam too would have been there today!
Though foolish and almost dishonourable to feel he should have been
living, who has done better to die in such a cause—still the heart feels.
As far as we are concerned, I again assure you not to be anxious about us
at all. All the term-prisoners of our case had been sent back to India, and we
lifers (life-transportees) only remain. As long as the war is going on, I, on
principle, have made up my mind not to ask for anything so as to embarrass
the authorities here; and at present both of us are keeping good health and

Captain—now Major Murray is superintending the jail affairs. As long as
he is here, you may rest assured that nothing that evinces a personal rancour
will be done or said; no underhand pinpricks, beyond what the regulations
require. Every letter and every book you send will be duly delivered. As far
as our daily life is concerned, well, it is going on in the same even way as it
did last year. In a prison what happens on the first day happens always-if
nothing worse happens. In fact, it seems to be the essence of prison
discipline to avoid all novelty, all change. Like specimen and curios in a
museum—here we are each exactly in the same place and same position,
bottled and labelled with the same numbers with more or less dust about us;
and the guide book that I wrote to you in my last year’s letter may serve the
purpose of description as long as 1 am here. We get up early—work hard,
eat punctually—at the same time, at the same place and the same amount
and kind of food prepared with same match-less prison-skill and medical
care. I read much in the time that can be spared from work and sometimes
in the evening attack many flowers-now remembered only in names-and
flower-like themes with blank verse and then sleep. Here one thing must be
said. Although it is true that prisoners are not free to do or say what they
will, yet to the credit of the jail authorties, it must be admitted that everyone
is absolutely free to dream what he likes. And I assure you I take the fullest
advantage of this concession. Almost every night, I tell you, I break jail and
out by dale and down and by tower and town, go on romping till I find some
one of you—some one who somewhere had been held close to my bosom!
Every night I do it but my beneficient jailors take no notice of it. You have
only to wake in the jail, that is all they say.
I hope just at the end of the war, you send a public petition for the release
of us. The thing is this. Not only in India but even in any free and self-
governing country, the Government cannot release political prisoners unless
the Government are backed up and supported by the wish of the people to
that effect. An exercise of the right of amnesty cannot be made by the king
or the president unless the people are willing to have the prisoners back. If
Indians are willing and petitions to that effect go at the end of the war, we
may be released and if Indians are not willing to have us back, neither the
Government can release us nor it is worthwhile to have that release. Port
Blair is willing to have me, and I am here. I have no wish to thrust myself
on any people unwilling to have me back. At any rate you may ask for our
being sent out of this jail just as all other prisoners—even those who had

been sentenced here additionally—are allowed to go and settle on the island
and bring their family here. In short, all the concessions that the prisoners
get under the regulations here in force. In this, we ask nothing special and
this by repeated petitions from you and us both, we in all probability will
succeed in getting.
Last year in the letter of our dearest Vahini, she had not written how the
little Dhondi was? Is She married? Please give my best love to our beloved
Yamuna—how is her health? Does she read? In what class or college is my
dear Balvantrao? And the other children? Give my best love and respects to
my dearest elder sister-in-law—whose life is a record of self-sacrifice and
noble enduring and calm and silent suffering for no fault of her and for the
good of others, and also to my younger Vahini whose kind remembrances of
me I got last year through our Mai’s letter. I remember them and all other
beloved friends every day. At every corner that my mind takes in its aimless
rambles, their dear image is sure to be met and then my mind is sure to stop
and build a new temple of a sweet and a sad tear and hold them there a
while and worship them, who made my life as it is and pray they do not
forget me. Whoever allowed, maybe for a minute—the right of loving and
being loved by me—I worship them all in the same temple and on the same
pantheon my petts and boomfriends, my comrades and chums!!
Well my dearest brother, I am glad your study of medicine is promising to
be fruitful. Do not injure health for the sake of study. Let me know your
weight. Now my dearest Bal with all my love and with my choicest
आशीर्वाद to you and our dear little Vasant and our sister Mai, will you
allow me to tear myself from your sweet mental communion.

Cellular Jail
6-7-1916
Port Blair
My beloved Bal and sweet Shanta,
Please accept my and my brother’s heartiest congratulations upon your
entering the second stage of life—the life of wedded love. Nobly hast thou,
dear Bal! fulfilled the first stage of your life—the stage of self-culture and
self-sacrifice. Thou possessest the golden keys to the treasured wealth of
knowledge, both ancient and modern, in the acquaintance with Sanskrit and
English languages. The final examination that you have passed in Medicine
is bound to stand you in good stead, in any part of the world and in spite of
any laws passed by a narrow misguided legislature; while your pen has
already made its influence felt in Maharastra in both the fields of prose and
poetry. On the other hand, the responsibilities and duties of that stage could
not have been better discharged and fulfilled. When the storm began to
gather over our Mother, it found you unmoved and firm at your post—it
burst and left you undaunted and true, and among the many faithless yet
faithful! The enthusiasm, to awaken which amongst their youth, Europe has
been holding before their eyes the glories of iron crosses and Victoria
crosses and unrolling rolls of honour—that enthusiasm and faith had been
displayed by you, who discarded even the reward of public acclamation;
nobly therefore hast thou completed the first stage of your life and now
enter ye-, dear Bal and beloved Shanta!—on the happiest and most exalted
stage of life, the life of wedded love. May thy path, dear Bal, be strewn with
roses and may thy youth, dear Shanta, blossom forth in Amaranthuses and
gold! Domestic happiness—the only bliss of paradise that has survived its
fall’ may bless your nuptial shed! ‘मधुनक्तमुतोषसि मधुमत् पार्थिवं
रज: (The dawn, the evening sweet and grateful be the Earth)!!
You perhaps remember that in one of my letters, I had just dropped a
suggestion to the effect that it would not have surprised me if some one
amongst the clever Bengalis had stolen your heart! After all, the expected
had very nearly happened. For though I long to see the day, when inter-
provincial marriages amongst the Hindus would throw down the artificial
and harmful barriers of castes and creeds and the Great River of Life—our
Hindu life would, having freed itself of all bogs and sands, flow in an ever
fresh and mighty current-uninterrupted and interruptible—still the first and

foremost thing to be effected in that direction is to restore to love her sole
privilege and right of presiding over the wedding rights. Indeed, we can no
longer be blind to the fact that we care more for the good breeding of cattle
and fowls than for the Eugenics of man. Centuries of child marriages and
marriages by proxies! Centuries of love banished from its legitimate sphere
of influence to attract and develop elements that tend to the betterment of
body and mind and soul; and the inevitable result is a race puny, debilitated,
all vigour and manhood sapped out of it. Thousand things have wrought this
and the marriage customs that prevail in us are one of the few important
factors contributing to it. Authorities should come in to sanctify but not to
silence love altogether. And glad was I, therefore, that the age, the
education, the part that mutual attraction and esteem played in welding your
hearts together and above all, the sanction of all those who feel drawn
towards us should have enabled you to have realized that in which I thought
our family should not lag behind. Or in short, when dear Bhau has
sanctified it with his blessings, it goes without saying that it must have been
just after my heart.
And now Doctor Saheb, where are you going to settle? Only yesterday, I
was told to write this second letter as the first had been lost in the post
office by accident. Although it must have cost you a lot of anxiety, to me it
enabled to know your present address. From that, I see you are in Bombay,
at present. Would you settle in that unhealthy and cramped in city! Would
not the rising free Baroda suit better where the enlightened prince Sayaji
rules? But all that as you choose and not I—for you are on the spot and
know how to judge best. One thing only I would insist upon and that is you
must not in any case risk your health and freedom personal freedom. This is
—depend upon me—perfectly not only permissible but positively
commendable in your case and the case of those who stand as you do. In
other cases, too much attention to personal considerations is undoubtedly
demoralizing; but you cannot pay too much attention to it. Be anywhere in
the world—in the forests of Africa—in the republics of America—the
medical knowledge that you possess is sure to serve a passport and a
safeguard to you. For, indeed, wherever death is, doctors also can be -(Ugh!
Seen very angry? Of course, I mention this with all due respect to the
Majesty of Medicines—in fact in order to exalt it.) Therefore, do nothing
that would do injury to your health and also, nay more so, health of Shanta.
She should, of course, be encouraged to read more and to write even if she

chooses; but the first and foremost consideration of a young lady should be
her health. It is a trust she holds for others, a debt she owes to generations
not yet born. Every atom of health that a young lady dissipates is so much
that is taken away from the strength of souls that are yet to rise. She is a
golden link that joins the yesterday to tomorrow; a promise that holds in it
the possibilities of her race. Therefore, the first care of a wife should be her
health that would harmonise the beauties of her body and mind and soul. So
neither study nor pleasure should entice her away so as to tax her energy too
much, but both should be indulged in only so far as to render that health
perfect and that beauty transparently pure.
Now something about me; and yet I wonder what that something is! For
there am I, as you left me after you finished the last letter you got from me.
Change is a word that is not found in prisoner’s dictionary—especially in its
Port Blair edition. The great war that you say has shaken your hemisphere
has left totally untouched me and my Port Blair. This, our little kingdom
here, is about the only state that can with a justifiable touch of egoism claim
in its yearly speech from the Throne of having maintained its interests intact
in this world-earthquake. Our imports and exports are unchanged. We keep
our lights all night up. While our international communications are as
peaceful as they had been ever since this little kingdom rose out of its
Oceanic Night! Mr. Asquith has every reason to be jealous of us. Our
citizens have not been forced to subsist only on a reduced scale of meal and
potatoes as the Germans are said to die for the simple reason that we never
ate any! Whatever we eat, we grow—grass and such other edibles, while
these solid and aspiring walls of my jail have reduced the very walls of
China to a mere heap of debris. Those walls could, and that too not very
effectively, stop the outsiders from rushing in but these walls while doing
that can also effectively prevent anyone inside from going out. No! On pain
of death, no! Thus we, like a little world organized to serve as a prototype
and a foretaste of the hope of the Humanitarians, when the war shall have
been banished from the realms of man, live—I beg your pardon—exist—as
peacefully and quietly as to put to shame the very realm of death.
As to the interview, I think it is best to wait till this war be over. For, to a
certain extent, we can understand the hesitation of the Government in
granting it now. And even after the war, the letters that you may write to
them for the interview should be only on the ground that every other
prisoner is allowed a visit, so should I after five years and not on the ground

of any anxiety of our hearts to meet. For, in that case, even if they do not
grant it, we shall at least have the manly satisfaction of not having
displayed the most sacred and the most human of all wounds—the wounds
of separation—to an alien and unsympathetic eye. Again, whatever you
wish to write in amelioration here should be written directly to Delhi. For
almost nothing lies in the hands of the authorities here as far as change,
especially for the better, is concerned in my case and whatever they can do,
they are doing and I would request them to do if possible, when it be left
undone. I know that some of you, though sure and certain that I shall not
break down under this imprisonment, are still grieved to think that I should
have been suffering all this and should have been forced to desist from all
work, social or political or even literary. But brother just think—is suffering
no work? Who worked more for Christianity—they who suffered in silence
and unknown or they who worked? Surely both; but I suspect that those
who work for a good cause outside, work much—but they who suffer for it
in prisons and fields work more. At bottom, work, if true, is suffering and
suffering, if true, is work. Suffering is the motor, the power that moves, and
goads and propels a people. Unless the best amongst them suffer, the rest
cannot work. Both are grand, both are indispensable, and if both be
indispensable, then what grief if we be chosen and ordered to guard this
post rather than that? I bless myself that—this fell to my lot! Do not grieve,
brother, that I sit in darkness and simply waiting, while everyone else is
lighting his or her lamp to shed light on the path of man.
Do you not remember that ‘Her State’, is queenly thousands at her bidding
post—they also serve who only stand and wait!
And how much more then do they who not only wait but suffer and yet
stand!! The worker is great for he puts stone upon stone and chisels and
moulds; but then the cement of the Church?—is the sufferer! The martyr
that bleeds!!
And indeed, Bal! You can hardly believe how happy I feel from moment
to moment—strange breezes of bliss pass and repass, kissing all the
inevitable physical worry and weakness into ever fresh and ever blossoming
joy of the soul at rest. I feel just as I used to feel in the college days after
some final examination had been satisfactorily gone through and went to
stay home quietly but confident by expecting the welcome news of passing.
This Great Trial, This Test, to achieve the deliverance of the Mother!—and
so satisfactorily gone through as far as I was concerned! and now I have

come Home here and am confidently expecting the Great News that must
come! Oh! how I sleep soundly—how sweet the thing; for I worked so
strenuously in the day and while I was required at Her headquarters that as
soon as this night came, sleep fell as gently on my eyelids as dew. There are
moments when ugly dreams trouble desire to shine and see light—but at the
first touch of analysis, the self stands revealed and the dreams melt away,
are swept away—and calm once more sets in. Oh, when some times after
such a sleep, I wake in my cell and hear the waves idly breaking on the
beach just outside my little, high-placed and barred window, I remember the
lines of Kalidas प्रासादवातायनदृश्यवीचिः। प्रबोधयत्यर्णव वं सुप्तम्
and fancying myself like that king, I laugh and play and joke—all with
myself! Such thoughts are suggested by that consciousness of a rest, that is
at the same time the intensity of work—and they in their turn guiling away
the mind from the too real hideousness of a prison, strengthen that
consciousness of that rest. And thus, it is a fact that on the whole, I am and
so is our brother happy, satisfied and willing to live as long as that must be
in the atmosphere of frowns and frettings and harshness, of constant clash
and constant discipline, every step in which reminds you that you belong to
a race of slaves.
The account of your marriage ceremony was very graphically written. As
to the writer—he is indeed a very gifted man but with him, self-diffidence is
a great drawback. I think he should first try to write small popular stories
and short novels and get them published in some of the magazines, for that
would give him confidence in himself. Take, for example, the question of
caste system. Let him by suggestive stories paint the harm it is now doing,
how it is retarding us from the great goal, to which all mankind is moving.
Then let him write bigger works and so on. To him and to the Sahodar
Yamaraj and to all of them, give my most affectionate remembrances—my
companions of childhood and chums of the college days and comrades in
the field, all they whomever I called mine and to whom I pledged my word,
I remember them all with fresh affection and esteem. I was glad to know the
whereabouts of my dear Rishi! Is he still in the ‘Service’; holds the same
office? And my new friend! I remember him so much; for he had been so
considerate and kind under—even under these circumstances, even when he
himself had been undergoing the same trial! And then he is so intelligent
and active. I have missed the name of our Professor in the account of your
marriage ceremony? All my best wishes for him, and my dear and very

esteemed Madame Cama! She must have suffered a lot of worry owing to
the war! Give her my best and freshest love and tell her that those whom I
saw in Paris while I was with her then, are ever foremost in my memory—
especially the Sannyasin! The photos that you sent have been a constant
source of happiness to us. My dear Yesu, Vahini looks so calm and ever
bearing and ever true ‘like a Devata,’ as one of the officers had said to me
when she came to see me in the Bombay jail! My deepest love to her and
my Tai and my Shanta. I am proud of them all! Next time do not forget to
forward the translation of my beloved Yamuna’s letter—Noble girl! poor
girl! a thousand pities! and yet a thousand glories for her silent and yet
intense fixity of purpose. Do not press her to come to Bombay if her parents
object. Their judgment and love must be respected. How are all her
brothers? My most humble Âý‡æx to my mother and aunt मावशè.
With all love
I am yours—TATYA
❑

Cellular Jail
5-8-1917
Port Blair
My beloved Bal,
I was extremely glad to get your answer to my last letter, which I sent to you
in July 1916. How grateful we felt to hear in your latest that you with all our
friends are getting on well, and are healthy and happy. Thus, it has pleased
Providence to spare for you another year of bliss and especially of that tender
and pure bliss, which is only to be found in the bosom of a devoted and dear
family life. You see, my Bal, the times and the climes, in which the lot of our
generation has fallen, make it so imperative for all noble and honest hearts to
choose the path that leads through sorrows and sighs and separations which is
the path of duty, that the heart so hardened and accustomed to the hard and
merciless blows of fate comes to look upon disasters and disappointments as
the very order of nature at any rate of our part in the nature’s scheme, and
when a delighting event takes place, its attention is more fixed on how
temporary such a good luck must be than how good that luck is. To me, a joy
is ever a solution of tears. Well, any how the days are changed and with
changing fortune, friends too are returning. When I left you in the dock in
Bombay High Court, and had a last look of you not being allowed even to
shake hands, waved my hat and parted, my child, at that time the sting of the
whole scene was in the thought that we—Dear Baba and I—could not do
anything for you, our nearest and dearest charge. So young, so humble and
having already suffered more than a man in his whole life does, you, my
brother, were cast adrift, befriended by none, hated by many, suspected by a
powerful Empire! The family hearth seemed extinguished for ever, the family
gods broken to pieces. And although even all that could not deter us from the
right nor make me ally myself with the wrong, yet it was with a bleeding
heart that I wrote ‘जो वंशबाग उध्वस्त झाला। संततपुष्प तोचि क’
(the garden that has shed all its flowers for the garland of the Gods, is in
blossom for ever.) Even the evergreens of hope stood withered and blasted.
Only dear Vasanta, that was the bud, a melancholy memory of the past. But
now a few kindly touches of the spring have revived the sap and the creepers
are putting forth new buds. We had dear Vasant, and we have our Ranjan and
God willing, we may be blessed with one more messenger of new life. The
lamp of love is burning cheerfully under thy roof, and its warm and kind
reflections have lightened the utter darkness of my cell here. And the new

name of little Ranjan brings do mind the all suffering, the all loving, mother,
his grandmother, my dear Mavashi. What a joy it must have been to her!
Please to give my love to that dear little child, whom perhaps I may never
see! And tell me whether it understands it or not! And why did you not write
to me about Shanta herself? You left it to Vahini to do it for you. It is typically
Indian but in your next, you must write to me directly about your child and
everything else. It is this extreme modesty that makes the generality of Indian
babes grow rather in the shade than in the full light of their parents' eyes. No,
No! you must look upon it as a special and a sacred charge. It was a pity that
our dear Vahini should have been suffering from plague. I thought that this
dire epidemic had at last, by this time, left our shores but it seems that it rages
there still. Please be very careful of it. Is it a little less rigorous than it used to
be? Has not medical science as yet been able to find some reliable cure for it?
You should better leave Bombay as soon as it appears there. Nothing can be
too costly to avoid its dire claws, if indeed we cannot blunt them.
The last parcel that I got was in January 1916 and our dear Baba in March
1916, so neither of us has received any parcel for the last eighteen months or
so when we ought to have received two. Now this was the reason what made
us very anxious about your safety and I had to ask the permisison of the
Superintendent, who so kindly gave it, to wire to you. But I think we should
take as much care as it is possible to avoid any such necessity. The best way
would be that letters and parcels should be posted by you in fixed months, if
not dates, ...
This much, so far as we are considered. But then there is the other party in
the game-the post or the Government, and we cannot help suiting things to
their pleasure. In your last letter, you have written of a parcel lost in the post
and last year, my letter also was lost. Now what is the meaning of this?
Thousands of parcels and letters come all right to this place; only our letters
and parcels should be so mysteriously spirited away! Is it the post? If so,
please do leave no stone unturned till they give some definite explanation for
the loss of this parcel. You must have registered it; then it would be clear
whether and through whose indulgence or malice, my letters and parcels are
tampered with. This much for the post office. But if not the post—It is the
Government! Well; if so, then, mum!!! Mum is the word!! As I have learnt to
do without so many things which make life worth having, so also I shall and
can learn to do without a yearly parcel too! But one should have thought that
when a dozen censors have followed a book from the printer's office to the

clearance house and when powerful microscopes have searched the very
anatomy of the pages, the books, at least, those that are found
unobjectionable, should have been returned to their owner!
The Nasik conference was really a success. The resolution about the release
of the political prisoners has delighted even us, the forlorn and forgotten, and
our deep gratitude to those who dare to remember us still. One wonders why
the Congress should fight shy of any such thing even after its union. Perhaps
the leaders of that body are too much weighed down by the sense of self-
importance. Perhaps they think themselves too immaculate—far more
responsible a band of statesmen and patriots than General Botha whose
Government has released the leaders, the rank and file of the Boer rebellion
or Redmond, whose nationalists have never ceased to try for the release of
the Irish prisoners till they succeeded in having it. Nor can it be said that
‘that was a general participation in a rebellion’, as Mr. Bonarlaw has
attempted to state; for firstly in the Indian political prisoners also, the
overwhelming majority are convicts of general participation and secondly,
the suffragists though admittedly and case for case had been convicted of
‘individual’ charges, were released by Mr. Asquith long ago. But leave the
Congress alone! At any rate as soon as the war ends please do see if a public
Petition for our release could be sent. Such petitions and resolutions do not in
themselves bring such a release, but they at any rate make it more acceptable
if it ever comes. For, I for one would indeed feel it a shame to go back to a
people which dares not, or for all I know wills not to remember those who
loved and love and will never cease to love the land of their birth and rightly
or wrongly but fell fighting for Her! See, see if the petition could be sent.
That would be far more significant than any resolutions or meetings.
While together for a minute or so, I said one day to our dear Baba, that
there is said to be a पितृऋण Pitrarina and देवऋण Devarina and
ऋषिऋण Rishirina & C. So, also there is Putrarina पुत्रऋण (debt due to a
son). After the receipt of your letter, I felt myself fully acquitted of it! For,
after all, you are now fully educated and fully fledged. Now come what may,
at least two years of joy have been bestowed on you by the kind Providence
and through you on us. No day can shine forever. The life on this earth is like
a three petalled flower; one is coloured with pleasure, the second with the
colour of pain, the third mixed or colourless. Now the petal of pleasure and
then that of pain gets wormed and thus this vain round of recurrence goes on.

Take any letter or any life or even History itself, it is more or less a book of
mere statistics of so many births and so many deaths, so many weddings and
so many mournings, so much colour and so much shade. So, while there is a
brief respite, a passing ray of joy, a single touch of the spring, let us not
forget the hardship of the winter or foolishly depend upon and get addiction
to these wines of spring, while they are dancing in the cup. No, No, our, ...of
those who are born in India in this age ...our constant companion is winter
and not spring! Let us not forget that our life is a vast Sahara, unbearable and
still to be borne, sandy, burning. And while we are keeping to the path of
duty that passes through this parched desert, if the grace of God places in our
path such an ‘oasis’ as this, with which we have been recently blent, then let
us not forget that it is an accident, an art of grace; and without haste and rest,
must continue our way on this holy pilgrimage of life. Let us pray in all
humility as the old saints prayed: ‘Give unto us what thou wilt and when
thou wilt and how much thou wilt! And also take away from us what thou
wilt and how much thou wilt.’ After all, the fine ideal for a young man is not
to acquire but to sacrifice, not to rear but ‘the garden that sheds all its
flowers for the garland of the Gods and thus is in blossom for ever.’
How is my dear Mai getting on? What a silly idea that I could forget my
only sister! I may as well get angry and cease to speak with myself. While
the day lasts, try to save something and invest in some safe form in the name
of dear Shanta or dear Ranjan for we can never tell when winter may come
again!! Nothing could match the ideal constancy of affection of our dear
MadameCama. Even the war has not made her forget you! Thus, it is that
many a time the blood is not thicker than choice and there are affections,
which noble hearts alone can know, of which neither the lack of blood nor of
interest can cool and which growing up in an ideal land flourish and are
nursed on forces so subtle that the every day and matter of fact world fails to
see or comprehend.
How are also my beloved Mai (Yamuna) and Vahinis, getting on? My love
to them all. How is dear Balu? When I saw him in the Bombay jail he
seemed so upright and so loving a boy! Now he must be quite a respectable
gentleman? And so also Anna. I expected him to be a clever and able youth
and shall be very glad to know how far my guess has been correct. I wish I
could know everything about all my brothers, including dear Dattu and Nana
and what they do. But it is not and cannot be owing to my forgetting them as
my dear Yamuna seems to think, but for other reasons, which she can well