The Civil & Military Gazette can go for days on end without mentioning any specific Indian people -- it's as if the British government is the only thing whose existence matters in India. But every so often little bits of stories show up & they are sometimes quite intriguing.
Here is one such scrap:
A RUFFIANLY SEPOY. --A native soldier strolled into the Sudder Bazaar, Kurrachee [sic], about an hour after gun-fire on the night of the 25th ultimo having with him his rifle and a few rounds of bal ammunition. He visited a few tinsmiths' shops inquiring after a certain Borah [sic] whom he said had grossly insulted him. Receiving no satisfactory reply, he threatened to shoot one of the tinsmiths unless a clock was delivered to him, but on being expostulated with, he left and proceeded to another tinsmith's shop and inquired whether the Borah he was looking for had visited that shop. the tinsmith who was leaning against the door stated he knew nothing about the Borah, upon which the sepoy pointing his rifle towards the tinsmith discharged it, the bullet lodging in a rafter about eighteen inches over the man's head. The lucky tinsmith raised an alarm, but the sepoy decamped and cannot be identified."Borah" would be rendered in English today as "Bohra." The Bohras are Muslim traders largely based in India: Wikipedia
No comments:
Post a Comment