Jan 29 2013
One of my friend's uncle (Dr. X) mentioned to me that there are old European cemeteries and a fort in Surat. History interests me and so, we decided to find out about them. We asked the locals but surprisingly many had no idea about them. Then, we turned to almighty Google and sure enough, these cemeteries and an old fort do exist within Surat's city limits. But far from being tourist spots, finding them turned out to be an mini adventure in itself.
Dr. X and I took an Auto-Rickshaw to check them out. Surat was one of the first European settlements in India and its sea port offered an excellent opportunity to do trade. Naturally, the foreigners wanted to impress to Mughals and they did this by building mosques and the tombs for their important men, women and children showed a blend of European and Mughal. When we reached an area where we expected a cemetery to exist, Dr. X asked the locals in about these cemeteries. Again, the locals did not seem to care much about its significance and could not pinpoint the location. But by mere coincidence, we spotted one. It was the English Cemetery:
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| Entrance to the English Cemetery |
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| This tomb's architecture shows a blend of European and Mughal. |
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| The cemetery is serious need of restoration like this tomb shows. |
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| A stone showing that this area belongs to the Church. |
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| Year 1736 but there were much older tombs as well. |
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| On some, you can climb to the top through very narrow stairs. I've tried to capture the scale of the cemetery. |
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| Surati trees, electric poles and lines are decorated with fallen kites. |
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| This tomb says the person died of Smallpox. |
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| A view for the Dead. |
Then, we set out to look for other cemeteries (we knew there was a Dutch and an Armenian one). Stay tuned.
For more details, refer to this article: http://dro.dur.ac.uk/3774/
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