To the Indians who died in South Africa - T.S. Eliot

A man's destination is his own village, 
His own fire, and his wife's cooking; 
To sit in front of his own door at sunset 
And see his grandson, and his neighbour's grandson 
Playing in the dust together. 

Scarred but secure, he has many memories 
Which return at the hour of conversation, 
(The warm or the cool hour, according to the climate) 
Of foreign men, who fought in foreign places, 
Foreign to each other. 

A man's destination is not his destiny, 
Every country is home to one man 
And exile to another. Where a man dies bravely 
At one with his destiny, that soil is his. 
Let his village remember. 

This was not your land, or ours: but a village in the Midlands, 
And one in the Five Rivers, may have the same graveyard. 
Let those who go home tell the same story of you: 
Of action with a common purpose, action 
None the less fruitful if neither you nor we 
Know, until the judgement after death, 
What is the fruit of action. 

This poem is by T.S Eliot. The poem is about feelings of a soldier who is survived in war. In the end poet remembers Indian soldiers who died in south Africa in war and states that they are buried there so now that is their homeland.

Wherever a man may be, there is one place he yearns to be and the place is his home, his native place. He longs for his home and hearth, for the food cooked by his wife. He wishes to sit at his door peacefully enjoying the sunset and watch his grandchildren playing in the dust with the grandchildren of his neighbour. These feelings are of a soldier after the war is over.

The soldier at the end of his career has luckily survived the war in spite of receiving many scars on the battlefield. He has memories of the war and of the foreign soldiers he met   during the war who were like his fighting away from their homeland. These memories come to him when conversing with people.

A soldier is not destined to remain in his native land or die there. His destiny may take him away from his native place to a foreign land. If a country is home to one man, it is exile to another. The country where the soldier dies fighting becomes his home land, while his own country becomes a foreign land.

Addressing the dead Indian soldier ,the poet says that Africa, where he and the other soldiers had come to fight, belonged to neither of them, but as they died in the soil of Africa fighting for their motherland ,Africa becomes their native or motherland.