Graveyards usually either depress or spook me, and I try to give them as wide a berth as possible. Even on All Souls' and All Saints', I prefer to offer up my prayers for the dead at home rather than visit the cemetery. When I read about Kolkata's South Park Street Cemetery in my guidebook though, I felt I absolutely had to visit it.
Serene and atmospheric, almost reminiscent of a Japanese moss garden, the cemetery is a bit of the Raj frozen in time. Secreted there, beneath the mildewed stones and gnarled roots, are the bones of British soldiers and civil servants, and their wives and children, their own little histories summed up in their epitaphs. Some of them died fighting for the British Empire, for the Queen. Many young wives and children succumbed to illnesses that the English constitution wasn't built to survive. But saddest are the graves of babies, which are tiniest but seem heaviest--filled as they are with undreamed dreams and unfulfilled promise.
Serene and atmospheric, almost reminiscent of a Japanese moss garden, the cemetery is a bit of the Raj frozen in time. Secreted there, beneath the mildewed stones and gnarled roots, are the bones of British soldiers and civil servants, and their wives and children, their own little histories summed up in their epitaphs. Some of them died fighting for the British Empire, for the Queen. Many young wives and children succumbed to illnesses that the English constitution wasn't built to survive. But saddest are the graves of babies, which are tiniest but seem heaviest--filled as they are with undreamed dreams and unfulfilled promise.
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