your bridge home
Festivals
A group of soldiers, stationed hundreds of miles from home, could do nothing to protect their families from a spreading plague except make a promise to a goddess they could not see.
In 1813, a terrible sickness swept through the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad. It took thousands of lives in a short span of time. Fear spread quickly through the region as the sickness advanced. No clear way to stop it was in sight.
At that same time, an army battalion from Hyderabad State was stationed far away in Ujjain, in what is now Madhya Pradesh. Word reached the soldiers there. The sickness was tearing through their home cities, and fear for their own families spread fast through the ranks. Among these soldiers was a doli-bearer named Suriti Appaiah. He joined his fellow soldiers in seeking help the only way they knew how.
The rest of this story, read aloud, and a new one every day.