Safar

 One can live in a place for years and even next door sometimes, and yet not register things. Similar is the case of 'Gora Kabristan ' in Kanpur. It is situated right at the entrance to my grandparents house where I have spent a lot of my growing up years. It would often be refered to as a landmark for people to locate the address, but never really registered as a place one would want to explore.  Visiting Kanpur this time, I was determined to see it. And so I  decided to walk down the driveway and into the Kabristan.  The cemetry belongs to a period before the 1857 mutiny. Old graves, some with beautiful tombstones, stand witness to the passing time. It was intriguing to see that the graves were mostly of young people, soldiers, wives, children, infants... having left the world much before their time.  One of the few British cemetries maintained by the ASI, the cemetry is testimony to the time when the British started establishing themselves in the country, wit...