I see my elder brother
Myself and my elder brother were in the same jail, and we had not seen each other yet. His heart received a shock to know that I was here. And the news ofhis sufferings had wrung my heart. But a day came to prove unto me that these happenings in the past were almost nothing in our experience of life. Joy is scarcely fraught with such pain as that day brought to us both.
I was naturally very anxious to meet my brother. I tackled the warden and the petty officer to use some means by which I may have even a passing glimpse of him, and that we may so meet that none else could be present near about us. I had insisted on secrecy because Mr. Barrie, and others of whom I had enquired about him, had told me that they had peremptory orders from their superiors not to tell me if he was or was not in that prison. What of our meeting each other then? once I heard that my brother had a bad headache and I enquired if that was true, and if true, why they had not removed him to the hospital, and if it was not unnatural, in that condition, to keep him confined in his lonely cell. The Superintendent asked me to mind my own business, and that I should not dabble in other people’s affair. He scolded the Jamadar and questioned him as to how I could get any information at all of my brother being in that prison. He admonished him further for his negligence, for otherwise I could not get that news and told him to find out the source thereof. I was trying my utmost, therefore, to see him at any cost, for I knew that I and he were never to meet again in this life. When I proceeded to England in 1906, my brother was among the persons who had come to see me off. Since then I had not seen him at all till I saw him here. At times I felt that it was better that we should not meet each other for the meeting would be exceedingly painful to him. But not to meet would be an act of cowardice. It would show lack of strength on my part to see adversity in the face. The elephant of calamity had already trampled us down under foot; what then, of a slight rap with his proboscis? And, after all, to avoid it was to spare oneself the shedding of some hot tears! That would be wanting in fortitude. To weep, to shed tears in a meeting between brothers, was an act of piety, the reward of merit through many births. At last, a warden did it for me. He had manoeuvred for our meeting in the evening, when all of us used to come together for our daily roll-call. Even then all were not let off at the same time. A batch came up, as another was sent away, in serial order. Availing himself of that opportunity, the warden set off our batch while the batch to which my brother belonged was delivering its quota to the Jamadar detailed for that work. I got hurriedly into my batch and came on the scene of action. And I saw my brother returning and our eyes had met. He had seen me bound for England full of pride and great expectation. He saw me now in the abject condition of defeated hopes, with ashes of my failures rubbed all over my body. It was a meeting and a sight that astounded him. The only expression of grief that passed his lips was,
“Tatya! How are you here?”
It went like a poniard into my heart. My warden instantly pulled me back lest any-one should notice us, and the meeting may grow into words. He was afraid that it may lead to consternation in the crowd, and that would expose all of us to severe punishment by the jailor. We came, we saw, and we separated. That was all of my meeting with my brother. But his words to me I could never forget. Later on he sent me a note drenched in tears: “I had hoped that you were there to carry on our work to success, to win India’s battle for freedom. I felt nothing, therefore, of the sentence of transportation passed on me. I treated it as a trifle. For it was a sacrifice for my country in a cause which you were out to lead on to success. The thought braced me; it made my sufferings a happy portent for the future. But now?…… You were in Paris then, how then did you come to be inveigled? Who is there after you to keep “Abhinava Bharat” alive and its activity going? How will it function’? Your ability, your capacity, and your power, have all gone for nothing; they are buried in the dungeon of this prison. And what of our young brother, Bal? I saw you face to face. And still my eyes would not believe what they had seen, I am confounded by the sight. Alas! Alas! How came you to be here?” It taxed all my patience to reply to that note. Every question that he had put to me had raised many questions which were already preying upon my mind. To brush aside all the yearnings of my heart; to drown the sorrow of my personal failures and of hopes associated with my success, now no more; to console my brother and to pull up myself was a task too great for me at the moment. Yet my will came to my rescue. I swallowed the bitter cup of misfortune. I penned a letter to convince him that “the prize was in the process”, and that failure and shame in such a cause were nothing in comparison with the God-given opportunity to fight in such a struggle.
It was a singular good fortune!
Was it not, to do what we have done? Why then mourn for the past? My power and intelligence would have been as nought, if I had feared and trembled in the hour of my trial, like Arjuna on the battlefield of Kurukshetra. I did not fail in my duty-in my Dharma, as we may put it. I had betrayed none. I faced up; I burnt myself into ashes; I exhorted my allies to face danger as their duty had called upon them to do; and I passed through the fiery ordeal which I had insisted that others should pass through. That is fearlessness, that is patience and fortitude; and you have done it as much as I. Ours is the victory and not defeat. For failure is no crime as low aim is. Failure is a matter of chance, of adverse fate which none can avert. A Napolean dies as exile at St. Helena on a foreign soil and on a bed of thorns. Does it take away aught from his past triumphs and victories, from his intrinsic greatness? His battle of Austerlitz will ever remain a shining monument to his genius as a warrior; a hero of hundred battles that he was. A Laxmibai of Jhansi falls at the second or third stroke of battle! An unknown soldier dies at the first shot. Is her or his valour the less praiseworthy for such a defeat and death? If I had lived free exposing others to the cannon shot, exposing them to win the battle, but not to see the victory, I would not be worth the name of a leader. I chose to be in their ranks and suffer the fate that they had suffered. That is the test of worth and will to power. And we have passed the test, and I feel proud of it more than of success and the golden opinions we would have won in consequence of that success. We are both in this prison, but we are going on all the same. We are doomed to rot and die here, we know. And those for whom we had paid our hostages to fortune may be cursing us, no doubt. But that is our life’s ideal, as great as to thrive and rise on the tide of fortune, and to hear the applauses of the crowd, and the drums of victory beating in our ears. For failures are but stepping stones to success. We have served our country by our failures; let others serve her by their successes. Yet we consider our failures as glorious as they may regard their successes. The tears of blood that we shed in this dungeon, and our forgotten lives on this earth, are as valuable assets of final victory as the trumpets and drums sounded in the hour of victory in the fields.
What of our Cause?
“You ask me that question. And my answer to it is no other than the song I composed on the day that the High Court was to deliver its judgment against me. Those thoughts and feelings shall inspire me, when my transportation has thrust me into the jaws of death itself. The lines which I wrote in that song run thus:- The Indian battleline of three hundred million soldiers of liberty
led by the charioteer Shri Krishna, and by the warrior Rama,- heroes of Hind, and her invincible ideal - shall not fall back because we are not in it. It will hem in the enemy; it will beat and conquer; it will hold fast the flag of victory and freedom; and it will plant it firm- Hind’s Oriflamme’,- on the snowy summits of the eternal Himalayas -the abode of our holy trinity-Brahma, Vishnu and Maheshwar. Glory to them; glory to Hind; and victory to the battleline of a three hundred million soldiers of freedom, the soldiers of Hind. That is my faith and that is my solace.”
Such was. the letter I wrote to my brother and saw that it reached him safely. It heartened him; and it gave me new zest, new hope, and new courage, to do the work I did.