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American Kamikazi Pilot?

Japanese Air Force photo

A Cry in the Wilderness

Massacre at Myitkyina Air

Remembering a Massacre

ChooChoo Train Myitkyina

The Angels Among Them

Donald C. Mellican passes

Reminisces of War

Seeking Lost RAF Pilot

Japan & Bose's INA

Sangshak,4 Mahratta Honor

4 Mahrattas vs Bose's INA

General Slim Returns

Sgt. Mellican's Wedding

Chin Hills Battles

War, Poultry and Pigeons

Takeuchi San ,Kiku Butai

Dr.Ikeda San Requests

Howgone Road

Sister seeks vet brother

Dudley Chettri traced

Death Camp Ouija Board

Life's Cruelties

Runs in Tiger vs Panther

Earl of Bandon's Car

About the Editor

Mumbai Taj & Gateway

The Burma War Stories You Never Heard Of Before©

Reminisces by Joseph Alwyn Valu 1957
At the Gateway of India

                     "At The Gateway of India, Bombay" 1956 *  
                                             A Poem by Joseph Alwyn Valu 
                        
                               * Copyright, 2004 by Joseph A. Valu. All Rights Reserved. 

                                Published by WorldWar2Burma Diaries. com  

A Note:


Bombay,where I lived for seven years, will always bring back to me memories of a herculean, but happy,
striving in my studies in school and college despite poor health (i.e. three attacks of rheumatic fever, the first in high school followed by two attacks in college,, one of paratyphoid, and an emergency operation for strangulating appendicitis),peronal loss of a loved one, and savage misfortune.
It will also bring to me my love of its many splendored folk, hard-working Mumbaites, clamoriing, undismayed to work, on the sides of the electric trains;the speed crazy taxi drivers weaving between cars and cycle rickshaws, and commenting unmentionables under their breath in their little known Punjabi dialect as their New York City compadres do; Kohli fishermen and women, the original inhabitants of the seven islands which were later reclaimed from the sea, and probably the original devotees of the sea godess Mumbaidevi,  singing their wares and struggling with their meager lives and catch; and my saintly grandmother who always smiled superbly in her strength, despite the poverty and neglect she suffered at the hands of Fate.
At trying times I would sneak away to the seascape near the Gateway and loosen some tensions
by flipping stones at the breakers, or mischievously flirting with some office girl on her lunch break.
An unmitigated romantic, I'd sometimes write lines,such as the following,to speak to my soul.

I love to walk along the shore
Where lovers stroll and breezes blow.
There youth and age --
The quick, the slow;
The merchants rich --
The beggars poor;
The sea gulls circle
The watery flow:
Are steeped in Evening's
Bounteous store
Of a hushed, and vibrant Peace.















   

     

Copyright 2008 by Joseph Alwyn Valu. All Rights Reserved.