GRAVEYARD

On Saturday we drove up and down… but mostly up these very windy roads through very steep mountains, which are actually the foothills of the Himalayas going as high as 10,000 feet here.

One of the many twisty and windy roads on our way into the mountains... ahem... foothills.

In some places the drop offs down the side of the road were at least 1,000 feet… and there are NO guardrails.

As I mentioned in my previous post “OFF” cows and monkeys were common sights, and in the little villages we would pass through men carrying heavy loads was also a common sight. The first place we stopped on our Saturday outing was a British graveyard.

This is a portion of the road we walked to get to the graveyard. They built spaces in the retaining wall for trees to continue to grow rather than cut them down. The root systems gives stability to the soil during the rainy season.

Land is precious in India. Hindu’s do not bury their dead because they believe it defiles the land. Instead they burn dead bodies or simply send them down the holy rivers. In order for the British to get a plot of land where it was okay for them to bury their dead it had to be land no one else wanted or land that was useful for little else. Hence this British Cemetery, which is actually in Landour (part of Musoorie) is on the side of a very steep mountain slope. Most of the soldiers who were buried here died of Malaria around the time of WWI; some, however, were from well before that time.

The picture to the right may give you a small idea as to the slope that we were on. The grave on he left is a more prominent one that was close to the wall and a little easier to get a picture of.

The gate was locked (see pics below) and apparently we were not supposed to be inside but the wall broken down around the side which gave us the opportunity to get a closer look. Dehra dun was a British hill station for many years until the independence in 1947. This brought a strong British cultural influence to the region; it is why we have tea time here at the college.

The stones that you see in these pictures were only about three feet long. Maybe the Brits were a lot shorter in those days, but I think that because of the degree of the slope they simply could not make full length coffins.

British soldiers and officers were stationed in Dehra dun and many officers had homes in the foothills towns like Musoorie where we went for our Saturday excursion. Musoorie started as a place where British soldiers would recover from war wounds and sicknesses but eventually it grew into a community and a popular vacation place for officers. There is also a military school here somewhere though we did not see it. That being said, when British soldiers died, the closest place where they could be buried was here.

A slightly different angle. It is eery to think that the person who was buried here was laid to rest so far from his homeland. He may have living relatives who have never visited his grave or even know that he is here. It was a quiet, beautiful, and lonely place.

This photo to me is a depiction of the Indian culture and the Cross. The culture is closed and and locked to anything outside of Indian culture...

...but the Cross is at work in ways that none of us can really understand. Jesus is already inside the gates. The gates of Hell can not prevail, nor can the gates of culture or politics.

These two pictures give a good illustration of the attitude towards Christianity here. Some are closed to the idea, others think anything is possible. What you focus on will determine what you see.

Just a Meandering Thought...


After the Graveyard we had lunch and then went to the FALLS (the last portion of our day off) which will be in the next post.