An article in this morning's Daily Telegraph online (El Jefe's favorite UK newspaper) reminds El Jefe, as if he needed reminding, of what a melancholy world he sometimes thinks that we live in.
The article concerns the disintegration and desecration of colonial-era British graveyards in India. These 1,000 or so cemetaries contain remains of British men, women and children who died in India during the days of the Raj.
Rajpura Cemetary in Delhi, where the British interred casualties from the Indian Mutiny in 1857, is now covered by a subdivision. The fence surrounding the grave of the heroic British soldier Brigadier John Nicholson, killed leading a column during the storm of Delhi on 14 September 1857, is now used by squatters to dry their laundry. Alas, this is not the first abandonment for poor Brigadier Nicholson in death: at the time of Delhi's fall, his hospital litter bearers abandoned their dying general to loot. Now he has been abandoned again.
But I suppose none of this is really of any moment. After all, if you read on in the Telegraph, you can find out that some rocker named "Gabrielle" tells us that "Bling is so demeaning." The views of this exalted person are much more important than anything ever accomplished by such un-PC persons as heroes of the British Indian Army. Meanwhile, the British are talking about putting a statue of Nelson Mandela on Trafalgar Square. Wonder what old Admiral Nelson would make of that ?
I am profoundly thankful I was not born a Briton, or a modern European. Considering what they were, and what they have become, I do not think I could bear it.
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