| Photo Information |
Copyright: Dominique Monrocq (dom_inik_m)
![Gold Star Critiquer/Gold Star Workshop Editor/Gold Note Writer [C: 233 W: 134 N: 468]](http://i1.trekearth.com/misc/g-g-g.gif) (1703) |
| Genre: People |
| Medium: Color |
| Date Taken: 2004-03-29 |
| Categories: Daily Life, Ceremony |
| Camera: Nikon Coolpix 4500 |
| Exposure: f/6.0, 1/250 seconds |
| More Photo Info: [view] |
| Photo Version: Original Version |
| Date Submitted: 2005-06-03 16:23 |
| Viewed: 595 |
| Points: 4 |
|
| [Note Guidelines] Photographer's Note [French] |
In George Stevens' swashbuckler movie, at least... where the native water boy of the British army dreams of becoming a first-class soldier for her Majesty the Queen and a bugler in the regiment.
A "real" soldier, in fact, carrying a gun instead of being treated as a sort of servant/slave by everyone and getting shot at on his own soil for a war engaged by a foreign conqueror, with no possibility to defend himself...
How strange romanticism and glory always spring from suffering and death... except in the opening sequence of Blake Edwards' the Party!
But there, instead of being the consequences of the decolonization process, disasters are only caused by the clumsiness of an Indian actor imported in Hollywood and trying to grasp the fundamentals of survival in a society imbued of its glorious past, falsely pretending to take on modernity and afraid to deal with the ever-changing present. The exact equivalent of the British empire in India some 60 years ago, somehow...
The uniform 'e wore
Was nothin' much before,
An' rather less than 'arf o' that be'ind,
For a piece o' twisty rag
An' a goatskin water-bag
Was all the field-equipment 'e could find.
When the sweatin' troop-train lay
In a sidin' through the day,
Where the 'eat would make your bloomin' eyebrows crawl,
We shouted "Harry By!"
Till our throats were bricky-dry,
Then we wopped 'im 'cause 'e couldn't serve us all.
It was "Din! Din! Din!
You 'eathen, where the mischief 'ave you been?
You put some juldee in it
Or I'll marrow you this minute
If you don't fill up my helmet, Gunga Din!" -
'E would dot an' carry one
Till the longest day was done
An' 'e didn't seem to know the use o' fear.
If we charged or broke or cut,
You could bet your bloomin' nut,
'E'd be waitin' fifty paces right flank rear.
With 'is mussick on 'is back,
'E would skip with our attack,
An' watch us till the bugles made "Retire,"
An' for all 'is dirty 'ide
'E was white, clear white, inside
When 'e went to tend the wounded under fire!
It was "Din! Din! Din!"
With the bullets kickin' dust-spots on the green.
When the cartridges ran out,
You could hear the front-files shout,
"Hi! ammunition-mules an' Gunga Din!"
Rudyard Kipling – Gunga Din
Back to the photo. I still wonder why they all carried two buglers. Juste in case one of them would get out of tune? ;-)
Lens distortion correction
underground travel ‹- you are HERE! -› above ground
(Hôtel des Invalides) |
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![Gold Star Critiquer [C: 611 W: 46 N: 359]](http://i1.trekearth.com/misc/g-n-n.gif)
(2014)