The Martyrs' Memorial PDF

# THE MARTYRS' MEMORIAL ## Amarendra Kumar Amarendra Kumar (b. 1937), a poet and short story writer, was born in a north Bihar village. He did his M.A. in 1959 from Patna University. He was professor of English at R.N. College, Hajipur in the Bihar University Service from 1985 to 1997, and at Dham...

# THE MARTYRS' MEMORIAL ## Amarendra Kumar Amarendra Kumar (b. 1937), a poet and short story writer, was born in a north Bihar village. He did his M.A. in 1959 from Patna University. He was professor of English at R.N. College, Hajipur in the Bihar University Service from 1985 to 1997, and at Dhamar University in the Republic of Yemen from 1997 to 2002. In addition to publication in a number of journals and anthologies, he has four published books of poems, The Real Episode (1981), Sound and Shell (1986), Stage Dilemma (1988) and Song/Anti-Song (1996) and a collection of short stories Passionate Pilgrim (2006) in addition to his collection of short stories in Hindi KachchaBela (1993). ## THE MARTYRS' MEMORIAL The legendary martyrs of Patna who sought to break through the Empire's armoured, bayonet-pronged barricade for flag-hoisting at the Secretariat on the historic day of August Eleven Nineteen Fortytwo Felt the tower top grow moist By the mind's eye... Receptive clay's yearning to bear the native flagplant, to exorcise the choking pernicious alien spell. The blazing victory-marchers of the trampled land heard only their blood-thunderous charge, intrepid unswerving flagmen's marching music. The wide open agitated scene witnessed fed the tidal swell of the iron will and the fiery slogans Down! Down! Down! On to the top! Our own...Own! Each breaker of the bond of slavery renounced earthly care, the warm tender ties of household love, the tangled knotty mesh of trivial concerns... Each in his paradise of the taste of freedom by the taste of his own blood. The image is of four men walking, each with a raised fist. They are all in profile to the viewer. The image appears to be a representation of the men who died in the martyrs' memorial in India. They are lined up, walking, as if in procession towards the viewer.