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"..Let me first speak about the companions of
my days of trouble, the boys who had been
accused along with me. Watching their behavior
in the courtroom I could really feel that a new
age had dawned, a new type of children had begun
to live on the Mother's lap. Those days
the Bengali boys were of two kinds: either docile,
well-mannered, harmless, of good character,
cowardly, lacking in self-respect and high aims;
else they were evil characters, rowdies,
restless cheats, lacking in restraint and honesty.
Between these two extremes, creatures of many
kinds must have been born in the land of Mother Bengal,
but except for eight or ten extraordinarily
talented and vigorous pioneers no strong representatives
of a superior breed beyond these two groups were
usually to be seen. The Bengali had intelligence,
talent, but little power of manhood. Looking at
these lads, however, one felt as if the
liberal, daring men of an earlier
age with a diferent training had come back
to India. That fearless and innocent look in
their eyes, the words breathing with power,
their carefree delighted laughter, even in
the midst of great danger the undaunted courage,
cheerlfulnes of mind, absence of despair or grief,
all this was a symptom not of the inert Indians
of those days, but of a new age, a new race
and a new stir. If these were murderers, then one
must say that the bloody shadow of killing
had not fallen across their nature, in which
there was nothing at all of cruelty, recklessness
or bestiality. Without worrying in the least
about the future or the outcome of the trial
they passed their days in the prison with
boyish fun, laughter, games, reading and in
discussions. Quiet early they had made
friends with every one, with officers, the
sentries, convicts, European sergeants,
detectives, court officials and without
distinguishing between friends and foes,
the high and the low, had started to tell
stories and jokes. They found the time spent
in the court-room quite tireseome, for in that
farce of a trial there was very little that
was enjoyable. They had no books with which to
beguile the time, and talking was forbidden.
Those of them who had started doing yoga,
and who hadn't so far learnt how to concentrate
while in a crowd, for them passing the time became
difficult. At first some of them began to
bring books with them, this was soon followed by
others. Later on one could see strange spectacle:
while the trial was going on, and fate of thirty
ot forty accused persons was wrangled over,
whose result might be hanging or tranportation
for life, some of these accused persons without
as much as glancing at what was happening around
them, were absorbed in reading the novels of
Bankimchandra, Vivekananda's Rajayoga or Science
of Religions, or the Gita, the Puranas or Eastern
Philosophy. Neither the English sergeants
nor the English policemen objected to this.
They must have thought that if this keeps
the caged tigers peaceful, that only lightens our duty."
Sri Aurobindo
From "Tales of the Prison Life
(Karakahani)"
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