Pune's Fashion Street is built over a lost heritage British Graveyard - A protected National Monument, that has officially declared missing since 2006
Most of us have been to Fashion Street at Pune Camp. Bought something there. Haggled there.
We've been shopping on a graveyard.
The East Street Cemetery - 231 graves, Protected National Monument since 1909, same legal status as the Taj Mahal - is officially listed as untraceable by the ASI since 2006. It didn't disappear. It became our favourite shopping market.
While going through an old book about Poona Cantonment, I found this 1879 map. Right where Fashion Street stands today - a trapezoid plot labelled "Old Burial Ground."
Published authors with their own Wikipedia pages are buried here. An author whom William Wordsworth called one of the finest minds he ever knew. India's first woman newspaper editor. The former Mayor and Sheriff of Bombay. A soldier who took Tipu Sultan's ring and hair at his last battle. An infant whose brother translated the English version of Kama Sutra for the world. All buried here.
After 1947, the British left and this graveyard was eventually forgotten. By the 1990s, the graves were cleared and this was used a car parking named Kamble Maidan. In 1997 the Pune Cantonment Board moved hawkers there. Fashion Street was born. Directly on top of it.
This story got 200K views and 1,000+ upvotes on r/IndianHistory last week. But honestly - r/Pune was the audience this was always meant for.
Covered by PunekarNews - video interview and full article in the comments. If you are interested in reading about the detailed history, link to the research heritage blog also mentioned below.