I am not sure if I had read Agatha Christie's "The Hollow" before. But it was a treat to read this Hercule Poirot mystery. And here are the lines quoted in it which will remain with me forever:

He is dead and gone, lady,
He is dead and gone.
At his head a grass green turf,
At his heels a stone.

They brought back memories of a cemetery seen somewhere in France a long time back. I had been to France for a project presentation and my then boss was very amused at my reluctance to step into the cemetery. "You should be afraid of the human beings that are alive. What are the dead going to do to you?". I knew he was right but years of watching horror movies with the zombies coming out of the graveyards didn't allow me to enter the cemetery.

And then there was one somewhere in Pune where rows upon rows of graves seemed to stretch as far as eyes could see - soldiers who died in a war were resting there waiting for the Judgement Day. I stopped the rickshaw for a minute, offered a short prayer and drove off. Sometimes it really feels like there are more people under the ground than above it! :-(