A very interesting piece in caravan
http://caravanmagazine.in/vantage/what-indian-soldiers-first-world-war-wrote-home-about
To commemorate the centenary of India’s service in the First World War,
the British historian David Omissi collected the letters of Indian soldiers away
from home in Indian Voices of the Great War, published this year by
Penguin. These eloquent letters offer a poignant glimpse into the lives of these
Indian soldiers, whom history forgot.
Examples:
A wounded Sikh to his
father
[Gurmukhi]
Brighton Hospital
18th January 1915
Tell my mother not to go wandering madly because her son, my brother, is
dead. To be born and to die is God’s order. Some day we must die, sooner or
later, and if I die here, who will remember me? It is a fine thing to die far
from home. A saint said this, and, as he was a good man, it must be true.
Ram Prasad (Brahmin) to Manik Chand (c/o Sikander Ali, Bamba Debi
Bazar, Marwari Water Tank, Bombay)
[Hindi]
Kitchener’s
Indian Hospital, Brighton
2nd September 1915
And send me fourteen or fifteen tolas of charas, and
understand that you must send it so that no one may know. First fill a round tin
box full of pickles and then in the middle of that put a smaller round box
carefully closed, so that no trace of the pickles can enter. And send a letter
to me four days before you send the parcel off. [Letter withheld]
…
