Stories Epitaphs Tell

Retired bureaucrat KJS Chatrath, who has written several books on Indo-French ties in the past, has come out with interesting insights about French graves and cemeteries in India in his latest book titled The Last Post.



According to the writer around 2,00,000 Europeans lie buried in different parts of the India subcontinent.



While Britishers have managed to maintain a fair data about their graveyards as well their people buried in India, not much is known about the French cemeteries in India.



"This work is an attempt to create a database of the inscriptions on hundreds of French graves in India," says the 68-year-old Panchkula based writer who has written about 10 books mostly on France-India interface in his long academic carrer.



While sharing that he has been moved by each inscription, Chatrath says that what pushed him to write this book was the subject. "It is contemporary in a way that the whole western world is quite excited about genealogy and is putting efforts to trace their family lineages and ancestral history," he says.



Several foreign tourists visit India every year to find out about their ancestors. "My efforts perhaps will help them find roots," he adds.



He informs that while French graves are scattered throughout the country, he has restricted his research to major French cemeteries in India which are located in the erstwhile French colonies, including Pudducherry, Karikal, Chandernagore, Yanam and Mahe.



While the first part of the book discusses French life in India, the latter deals with 1200 inscriptions he has managed to gather in the process of his research" he says.



"My tyrst with this book started during one of my first visits to Pondicherry about two decades back when I happened to visit a French cemetery there," recalls Chatrath, adding that the shape of various tombstones and more importantly, the inscriptions thereon, kept motivating him to explore further which finally resulted in his book.



He, however, adds that a major limiting factor in his research was those inscriptions that have faded with time and unfortunately, in some cases, the stolen gravestones – especially those made of marble. According to him, Europeans may have been the colonizers who invaded our country for economic and political reasons but their graves are now a part of our heritage. " We should respect them since they exist in our land," he signs off.





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