British Death March Under Asiatic Impulse: Epic of Anglo-Indian Tragedy in Afghanistan

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While composing this epic tragedy, I had two aims in mind: poetic as well as explanatory. The former objective was primary, to narrate a tragic event in history in an epic, the latter was a spin-off but equally important, having in mind to examine and explain the Asiatic Game and the Asiatic Impube as part of the historical process. I have added theoretical constructs to explain this process. However, the subject is too broad and comprehensive to be dealt with in a book devoted to a narrative in poetry. By including the explanatory prose as an extension of poetry does not do full justice to the subject that is broad and inviting for a book-length study: I will return to its realization at a later date. Here I have scratched the surface of this fertile research area by offering a summary and outline.

However horror-filled the first part of the title may sound, it has its resonance in the historical writings on the subject. I lay no claim to the originality of this lugubrious part of the title. The latter part, on the other hand, belongs to the poem's creative personality. The evocative idea of Asiatic Impulse distinguishes it from the conventional approach in historiography of imperialism while examining the particularity of First Anglo-Afghan War of 1838-42. It was a war of imperial aggression by the British playing the Asiatic Game. The Asiatic Impulse as part of the title makes a statement, suggesting the savagery of indiscriminate killing, annihilation and plunder. The political theory of world domination through the play of the Asiatic Game has been discussed in the prose section. The Asiatic Game and the Asiatic Impulse as concepts employed in the epic and used to explain world politics are complementary. The game is played because of the impulses that become the driving force.

The present epic tragedy has partly grown out of my earlier epic on Asia and "reconstructed" Prometheus. The two epics share a number of characters in common, eg. Europa, Uropiter, Asia, and so on. Even the narrative technique from the earlier epic may have helped, unconsciously though, to fertilize this poem to narrate an episode that has gone down in British history as infamous. I may have borrowed a few lines for my own earlier epic. The reader is made aware of the common ground shared by two books of poetry.