Chennai: With the likes of Odelia, Tick Berry, and Willowleaf Angelon flowers outgrowing their limits, Perumal Venkataraman, a quinquagenarian gardener, was busy even on a rainy day to maintain hundreds of tombstones – a befitting symbolic gratitude for bravehearts – at Chennai’s Madras War Cemetery. He, for 32 years now, with his four-member team has been shouldered to preserve this historic garden of remembrance.
The Madras War Cemetery came into existence after other civil and cantonment cemeteries ran out of space and were not in a position to permanently maintain a large number of graves of deceased soldiers of the Second World War. Established in 1952 by the Imperial War Graves Commission, the cemetery is home to the tombs of soldiers from several commonwealth countries including Australia and New Zealand. Though later renamed as Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC), their official webpage says the commission manages many cemeteries and war memorials across the world.
Built in the memory and honour of the Indo-British army, which consisted of those of varying identity and domicile and who were sent to battlefields beyond many boundaries, the place perpetuates courage and valour of uniformed men.
The designated tombstones feature names, ranks and regiments – Nigeria Regiment, Singapore Volunteer Corps, Manchester Regiment, Gambia Regiment – of the departed military personnel, but all of them sacrificed themselves and were granted a second ‘burial’ at the Madras War Cemetery. Several tombs carry messages and tributes incised by their loved ones.
The Stone of Remembrance, the first to strike you at the entrance, has an inscription– “their name liveth for evermore” – laying out the founding ideals of the garden. At the midway, surrounded by several patches of tombs back and forth, lies a bronze sword bearing white ‘Cross of Sacrifice’, representing all the War Cemeteries of CWGC.
At the rear end of the site, the campus houses Madras Memorial, a later addition. It has the names engraved of 1,039 soldiers from the British Indian Army who lost their lives in World War One .
An open space exposed to all kinds of weather across the year, the 70-year-old War Cemetery now faces the challenge to sustain the color of headstone as well as legibility of inscriptions. “CWGC provides all the tools and machines, and also our salary,” quips Venkataraman, who was awarded in 2012 by the British High Commission for his services.
However, seven decades is an extended period. As memory fades with subsequent generations, late soldiers are possibly being forgotten. And since the cemetery essentially is a symbolic grave, not many from the familial tree visit the cemetery now. “Six months back a person had come from Australia,” concluded Venkataraman as he moved on with his work on a deserted drizzling day.