We are Kaushik Rajput from Narsinghpur in U.P. On special
occasions such as marriages etc. such references are compared while exchanging
notes on each other’s origin and gotra. Information thus acquired remained
somewhere in my mind.
After almost, 60 years(in 2015), I had opportunity to browse the
internet, Google map in particular. As mentioned earlier, at the top of the
lineage, I found name of three brothers to start with. The names were Basti,
Daria and Harihar. I knew that a place or a town exists with the name Basti.
Our hierarchy descended from Shri Basti Singh (1765-1842). I surfed the Google
map. I was amazed.
At once, three aspects struck me as lightening. The first
was that our ancestors were widely travelled persons. They knew places around
their native places quite well and that they nurtured fond memories of some of
those places. The second was the three names of towns/places surrounding
Narsinghpur; Basti, Maharajganj and Deoria. Gorakhpur was located at the
in-centre of a rectangle with apex at Basti[1],
Maharajganj, Deoria and Bansgaon. The semblance of names: Basti Singh, Daria
Singh and Harihar Singh with place names around Narsinghpur, could be inferred
constructively by discerning readers.
This was the region where 1857 revolts had all the battling
facets in full bloom whence our two generations were fighting fit males in the
age group of 20-40. Freedom fighters, mostly Rajputs, were killed in battles.
Those remaining were arrested and hanged. Amorha[2], with
that notorious tree on which 250 martyrs were hanged in the aftermath of 1857
revolts, was only 40 kms west of Basti. Almost all the members of my ancestry
suddenly disappeared during the Revolt of 1857. This had resemblance with the
happenings at that time in this region. It is clear that the majority of
fighters were killed in the battle while the arrested were hanged. At the same
time, Ballia and Ara were in the revolt battle, led by Babu Kunwar Singh. It
drew freedom fighters from a trail covering Basti, Maharajganj, Deoria,
Bansdih, Bansgaon, Gorakhpur etc. In fact, the entire eastern U.P. and West
Bihar was a battlefield.
The trail to follow in the Second Chapter on Basti Singh
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