The Black Sea
They took me on the ladder and put me in the ground-floor of that steamer. A portion with strong iron bars was set apart in that place, no better than a long and narrow cage to accommodate twenty or thirty of us, in which were to be huddled prisoners on transportation at least fifty in number. We were no better there than cattle huddled up on board the steamer. I saw in that iron cage all the prisoners-the chalan-the whole of it, from Thana- arrayed and standing cheek by jowl in the file. They were cribbed and cabined into a space too small to hold them. As I saw them I wondered whether I was to be put in the same place with them, when the door of that partitioned room opened to welcome me. Yes, I found my place in that crowd and in rank and file. In England, I had suffered from bronchitis, and it had left its traces which always made my breathing hard in a narrow and congested room. I also had some pain in the chest due to such hard breathing. So I pointed out to a European Officer who accompanied us, that it would be dangerous to lock me up in such a place. He conveyed the information to the doctor in charge of the steamer. The doctor asked me to stay there for a while, and then, he would let me know about it. If anything went wrong, he assured me, he would certainly arrange for me elsewhere. In the meanwhile, he selected for me a spot in a far off corner of the same apartment, and ordered me to spread my bedding on that spot. How this special favour to me worked out in the end I shall narrate as I go on.
A gentleman came up to me, while this was going on, and broached the topic of my escape at Marseilles and my arrest thereafter. In my turn, I spoke to him frankly on the subject. Thereafter, he said, “We have deliberately come here to see you. May God grant that you return safe and back to your motherland. That is all our prayer to Him, and a very sincere wish, we assure you.” And the European gentleman and other Officers left the steamer bidding me good-bye and showing me reverence by taking off their hats. There was only one person among them who seemedto be displeased by their behaviour to a miscreant and convict like me. He despised me altogether as unworthy of this courtesy. He looked at me full of scorn, and went away without wishing me.
The Steamer Starts
The siren sounded, the funnel roared. It was a rude shock to us. The boat rolled and began to move. The partition in which we were pigeon-holed had, high up, two or three window-like holes fixed with glass. Hanging on to them, some unfortunate prisoners were casting their wistful glances at the receding harbour and fortification. The wall of the fortification became invisible when one of them burst out, “O, brethren, our home we have left, left have we our home.” He was so overpowered by that thought that he instantly sank to the ground. His wail sent two prisoners from Satara-peasants they were—into an outburst of tears. “No hope, now of seeing our country again, not the least hope!” they added. To them the retort came, “Do not weep my brothers, we are doomed for transportation, and no amount of weeping can save us.” It came from the most hardened criminals among the party, who had already served their term
in the Andamans once and were going back to it again. They consoled others like dispassionate philosophers standing in their midst. One of them suddenly turned round, and pointing his finger at me, exclaimed, “behold him, he is a barrister, Officers take off their hats to him. What is our grief before him? Brothers, let us not think of ourselves, let us think of him.” At this they gradually gathered around me. Every one put me the same question, though they all knew it: “What, Sir, is your term of penal servitude?” I gave to them the iron plate with the figure writ large upon it. I had been tired of repeating the figure ‘fifty’ over and over again. When the full realisation of this fact had come home to them, those, who were sentenced, among them, to fifteen years’ transportation, gathered courage and felt considerably relieved in mind. Looking at me they learnt to forget their own grief.
The Dirt On The Steamer
The evening came. It was blazing hot and the crowd was unbearable. The party of fifty who were my immediate neighbours on the ship, came from the dirtiest class of Indian population. Hindus, Muslims, thieves, dacoits, they were all inured to filth, cruelty and crime. Some of them were striken with foul diseases, some knew not what it was to brush their teeth, and all had piled their beddings one upon the other, and lay by each other without an inch of space between them. In this crowd I made my bed and lay upon it. My feet touched their heads, and their feet came up near my mouth. If I turned on the other side I found that mouth had nearly touched mouth. I lay on my back. Right in front of me I saw a big cask almost half cut and open. It was placed a little apart from the thick of the crowd, with a little open space near it. The space on my side of the partition and in the corner that accommodated me, was not so full of prisoners as that on the other. It was a little roomier and hence I was put there. But a horrible stink greeted my nostrils from that direction. And I had to stop my nose to avoid it. A neighbour pointed at the cask in the front. And I discovered that they used it all during the night as a chamber-pot and commode. One of them was actually seated upon it at the time to ease himself. And he was almost about to leave it in shame. I signed him not to do so. “The claims of the body cannot be put off. There was no shame in answering the call of nature. In a moment, I may follow you. Do it freely. We cannot help it. We cannot afford to feel ashamed in this wretched condition. I can smell, you think; do you think you have no nose? Why, then, should I feel the stink more than you?” At this, the hardened one among them came up to me and said, “Sir, we are used to this, I am one who has been once to the island across and I know this practice too well. But you do not. Come over on the other side where there is not much dirt. And I take your place here.” My heart melted when I heard him say this. His generous offer was a wonder to me. I said, “O, my God, even in the hearts of the most sinful ones, thou makest thy abode, turning it into a shrine of worship and prayer. Thou turnest what is dirty and untouchable into the holiest of the holy- the sacred basil-pot it becomes, when it was no more than a sink of filth and crime.”
I thanked him for the offer & said”Icould get a little breeze”, a draft of fresh air from this side and so the doctor had put me here. I could recline near the bars and stretch myself a little more comfortably than the rest of you. The Officer had no idea, perhaps, of this cask right under my nose. But I consider this even as a concession to me. So you need not worry. Why should I put you in the midst of dirt by exchanging my place with yours? I also must inure myself to this kind of life.” The night came and I beheld a file of them going one after another to that cask. Filth and stink had reached their peak of nausea and disgust. I shut my eyes and pretended to be fast asleep so that they may have no compunction on my account. Within me I said, “Alas! this was veritable hell on earth and I had to pass through it.” But reason admonished, “True enough, but it all depends upon our thinking. Don’t you know that this place was assigned to you as a favour; then, why should you grumble? Why would you not reconcile yourself to it? May be,
God desires by putting you here, that you should overcome your pride, your self-conceit, your separateness from the rest, your sense of superiority. The best of sages, saints, seers and yogis refrain from the ‘sadhana’ which has come in your way to conquer and bum into dust the pride of caste, gotra, race, class and character and merge themselves into the universe and be one with its Creator. Why not use it to the full then? Do you not know the story of TrilingaSwami? He was arraigned before a Magistrate on the charge of obscene conduct. In the course of the trial, the Magistrate observed, “These call themselves Advaitis? Why do they eat food and not cowdung?” The Swami laughed, answered the call of nature right in front of the Magistrate, and before any-one could stop him, ate his own excreta!”
Ramkrishna Paramahansa
The story goes of Ramkrishna Paramahansa which enforces the same moral. He had exhausted all the sadhanas of experience of unity with the Divine. One sadhana alone remained, and that was the hardest to practice. In order to practice it he went to Calcutta and in the vicinity of the town where all the sewers of the town deposit its excreta. He turned it up and down with his own hands. He put five blades of straw into the dirt and sucked the besmearedblades with his own mouth! You only smell it by the nose while the prisoners are seated on the cask to use it as their commode and you try to run away from the cask because the stink is too much for your nostrils. But while you seek to run away from it, how can you escape from the one which you carry on your person wherever you go? You may hide it underneath your garment but as the saint has put it, “The more you hide it, the more it is exposed, and the more it fills the atmosphere with its foul smell.” Ramdas is still clearer on the point when he says, “You may eat the choicest meal. It is bound to be reduced to part pieces and part vomit. Drink the water of the pure and holy Ganges. It cannot help itself from turning into urine.” And the process is common to man-be he prince or pauper. None can wash out the dirt in his own stomach. If this be the fact true for all time, then you must put up with the stink and filth outside of you as you bear it within and of your own body. If one is no nuisance to you, the other must be borne as no nuisance. If eating is the need of the body, purging is as much its indispensable need. And both the processes are equally beneficial to the human system. Why the world is like this, why the body and its senses feel happy in certain function and despise others as degrading to them, is more than man can either understand and explain. Only nature, which created us can explain and justify. This antagonism is beyond human intelligence to grasp. Perhaps it is nature’s play and nature enjoys it. Or nature is helpless to do other than it has done.
Such conflicts between reason and sentiment, such battle between their opposing forces on the theatre of my mind was a comedy to enjoy. Henceforward I felt nothing of the close contiguity of dirt I have mentioned. I went to sleep at past midnight. The hour, I believe, was one o’clock at night and I had sound sleep during rest of the time. While on board that steamer I never more showed my inconvenience and discomfort. The placidity of my temper was a surprise to fellow-prisoners. One or two of them even passed strictures upon my behaviour. They said that their suspicion of me as a dirty man of an extremely low caste was more than justified by my recent conduct. This they said behind me and only among themselves.
The Attitude Of The Europeans
The travelers and some of the Indian Officers on board the ship desired to express their feeling of reverence for me by doing me service of one kind or another. They often used to pay me a casual visit. Some of the European soldiers treated me very politely. I was given some English newspapers to read as also some magazines. We got on with nothing else to eat but fried grams and peas. But the Officers insisted that I should have something better. I did not know what special things I should ask for and it was difficult for them to make an exception in my case. As a result some philanthropic merchants on board that steamer arranged a dinner for all of us with the permission of the Captain. It consisted of rice, fish and pickles and several other preparations. The whole of the prison-world in that steamer welcomed it with joy after two days of practical fasting and I was the cause of it. They were duly grateful to me for it. They were all taken, for half-an-hour during the day along with me. on the deck of the ship to have a whiff of fresh air, and we were all treated during that time much better and with greater ease than in the prison-hold below. Naturally the prisoners expressed their gratitude to me in the following words. They said. “It is our good fortune. Sir, that we have your company in this voyage. What a piece of good luck it has proved to be!” To which I would reply, “Well then, it was right, after all, that I was sentenced to transportation for life. You, at least, welcome it, it seems.”
Day and night I used to enter into conversation with them. And the one thing I tried to impress upon them was that they should even think of their country. And it was their duty to work for its freedom, and so on and so forth. When any-one spoke to me, full of passion and sincerity, that it grieved his heart to find me in this pitiable condition, my answer to him always was, “Then you must be ready to fight India must be fully armed to fight and win her freedom, whatever be the cost of that struggle, whatever the ordeal she has to pass through to reach the goal. Then not only I but ship after ship laden with her cargo of prisoners shall be crossing the seas to go to the Andamans. You should realise this beforehand, for whoever reaps has to sow, and whoever sows has to reap.” From the ordinary sailor to the highest Officer of the ship, from the prisoner right up to the soldier I had become an instrument of political discussion all round. Some of them heard things that they had never heard before. What had never suggested itself to them upto that time did suggest itself to them now. And conviction came to them on matters of which they were never convinced previously.
Barrie Baba
Another important matter which harassed my mind during the voyage and did not give it rest, was to know the kind of treatment meted out to the prisoners during their term of imprisonment in the Andamans. That was the one question I put to everyone whom. I met on the boat, the one question I pursued all along the route, The party of soldiers accompanying the prisoners was one prime source of that information. They were, as it were, the arch-priests of that temple, and its authorised version. Whenever one uttered the name- transportation for life - the first response that came from that quarter was the word - Barrie Baba, The one happened to be the synonym for the other. When even the worst of the prisoners showed the slightest spirit of rowdyism or indulged in noisy mutual recrimination, the soldiers rebuked them with the exclamation, “Wait, you seem to be too proud of your devilry. But remember that once you face Berrie Baba all this will at once disappear. You will shake and shiver before him like aspen leaves.” As I felt that this mysterious personage and myself were soon to be lifelong intimates, I was curious to know who and what Barrie Baba was. But I decided that it was no use questioning the sepoys about him. About the Andamans, they assured me that within six months of my stay in that place. I would get my release from hard labour in the prison-house, and be detailed for some work in the office itself. An intelligent and educated man like me, they further added, might even be put in charge of a whole district in that place, had a good chance there, during ten years, to make his pile, have a home for himself and to pass the rest of his life in happiness and peace. That was their constant refrain as they talked to me on that subject. Am I being taken to the Andamans, I asked myself, to be rewarded for my revolutionary activities in India? It was well then that I was caught at Marseilles! If life in the Andamans is as they depict it, it will not he harder than the days of bitter exile I had to pass in Europe wandering from place to place, and begging from door to door for refuge and shelter. May be, what they tell me is true. But will it fall to my lot to share it? No, that cannot be for me. It was no better than a mirage in my case. I knew what had happened to my brother, and to others who were the first batch of political prisoners to be transpoited to that place. Shall I ever meet them? And what of my elder brother? Shall there be any chance of my seeing him? Who knows?
None could say anything definitely about it. I was told, however, that he was there in that prison. And I was probably taken to be confined in the same place. Of that, at least, there was no doubt in their minds.
Today, they are all saying it, our steamer will touch the port ot the Andaman Islands. The hour was six in the morning, when the prisoners were brought up on the deck in serried ranks. The laskars and other servants on the ship were busy cleaning the steamer. The sun came up and the temperature went up along with it. It was burning hot on the deck. With the nearer approach to the island, the transportation sentence wore a gloomier aspect. It had come so near to us, and the prisoners seemed scared by the thought. The thoughts of helplessness, separation, and grief, that were held in abeyance during the voyage, rose up rebelliously in my mind, like big fishes in the ocean that are tossed up on its surface in stormy weather. They created a storm in my heart. The shadow of transportation had completely darkened my soul.
The sea is calm like a lake, and the boat glides smoothly on its bosom, like children, in colder climates, skating on the winter snow. The sun is looking down on the earth with his fixed and glaring eye. It seems he is dazed by the triumph of man over the elements, as witness this steaming boat sailing defiantly over the element beneath. An ocean- a vast endless expanse of water- “The deep calling unto the deep.” The boat- what a funny thing it is before his terrible might and his broad bosom-almost “a cockle-shell”, as it were. But a small room in her, known as the captain’s cabin, dominates the whole scene. The man in that cabin with his helm and rudder, handles the sea like a tamed elephant. His compass and needle help him to ride the sea as the trident helps the rider to master and drive the elephant. What a conquest is this of mind over matter! One day the very sun will be equally amazed to witness man’s victory over himself, and gaze at this very earth for that triumph. Man shall have then conquered his devilish instincts and the brute and the tiger in him shall be no more. Those who suffer and those who make them suffer, shall have been an ugly dream of the past, and man shall live with man as a brother, tied to one another by the common bond of love. All other bonds shall snap, and freedom and goodwill prevail in the world of man. A glorious day will dawn on the kingdom of man. And the sun will look down upon the earth from his place high in the heavens as now, but with a heart full of rejoicing for the millennium that had arrived. Freedom will reign supreme then but for its allegiance to love. On that day alone shall have fructified the endeavours, the sacrifices, the supreme struggles, and the high and unquenched hopes, of all the martyrs ofthe Earth. And “nune dimitis’ will be the song sung on earth in honour of their souls. Happy the man who saw this promised land in the distance; happier he, who strove to bring it nearer; and happiest he, who has the fortune to enter it. Would that I be one of that shining company! At least, some share of it will surely fall to me. What a glorious future that will be!
The Present
But the present? What is your state today? Dream, an empty dream, a foolish dream- “the golden morrow” that you so delusively paint on “the midnight sky of sorrow.” Ages have rolled on since the Vedic Rishis had painted the golden scene. Man has ever been its dupe. It offers us a gleam of light in the dark; the horrible night of the present. Behold the sea, mighty, unfathomable, incomprehensible! A veritable giant in Strength and power. And this little boat glides softly dancing on its bosom. But the sea lets her go it that is all. He witches her play-the play of this gnat on his body. In a moment he may chafe and grow angry, and shake his giant body! A slip from him and she is finished. So is the bold inventiveness of man. If this mighty power rises and overspreads the land in a deluge, its single wave and spray are enough to shatter the boat to pieces, its Atlantean waves can swallow continents, and none shall know thereafter what was Asia and where was Europe! How puny is man! And of the race of this creature I am today the weakest and the most contemptible specimen. I am here squatting, in a comer, in the midst of the outlaws and the outcast of the world-the meanest and the self-condemned specimens of humanity on earth. I have to sit in a row with them, unseen, unwept and unsung. Manacled, gyved, bound on wrist and feet, here I am among them. So mean that the scavengers of the place are filled with pity; so abject that the hewers of wood and drawers of water could shout at me, “0, prisoner, get away from this place, sit there.” And I am compelled to obey them!
The sea was calm, snoring like a giant Hie boat was slowing down like the pulse of a dying man. The sun overhead was burning like a furnace. The weather was unbearably warm. We were very dose to the Andamans. The travellers and officers behaved with me now as perfect strangers. They were reticent and curt. They kept themselves at a distance. The shadow of transportation had extended itself to cover and darkenmycountenance.