The First World War Adventures of Nariman Karkaria : A Memoir

By Nariman Karkaria| Trans. Murali Ranganathan

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About the book

Amazing! An astonishing find! – AMITAV GHOSH

Nariman Karkaria, a young Parsi from Gujarat, had always wanted to see the world. So he left home as a teenager with fifty rupees in his pocket to do just that. After working in Hong Kong and Peking for a few years, in 1914, when war was in the air, he decided to volunteer for the British Army. Passing through China, Manchuria, Siberia, Russia and Scandinavia, he reached London early in 1915 and managed to register as a private with the 24th Middlesex Regiment. He was now a Tommy.

Incredibly, Karkaria saw action on three major fronts in the next three years. In 1916, he was in the trenches at the Battle of the Somme. After convalescing from an injury, he was sent off to the Middle Eastern Front where he fought in the Battle of Jerusalem in 1917. He was then transferred to the Balkan Front in 1918, where he served in Salonika. After being discharged, he returned to India and wrote a book in Gujarati about his years of travel and adventure, which was published in 1922.

Karkaria’s war memoir is truly one of a kind. And in Murali Ranganathan’s brilliant translation, this astonishing story comes alive with rare immediacy and vigour.

Pages: 260

Available in:

Language: English

Nariman Karkaria

Nariman Karkaria (1894–1949) joined the British Army during the First World War and saw action on three different fronts. His Gujarati war memoir, Rangbhoomi par Rakhad—the only First World War account written by an Indian to have been discovered thus far—was published in 1922. His second book, Iranbhoomi par Rakhad (1925), is an account of his year-long rambles in Iran.

Trans. Murali Ranganathan

Murali Ranganathan is a Mumbai-based historian and translator. He researches the nineteenth century, with a special focus on Mumbai and western India. His translation, from Marathi, of the iconic Mumbaiche Varnan was published in 2008 as Govind Narayan’s Mumbai: An Urban Biography from 1863.

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