Hunting In Shadows Of Raj

Author(s): Philip Wollen
Publisher: Philip Wollen

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Reminiscences from my childhood, half a century ago.
Hunting: In the Shadows of the Raj.
Philip Wollen
I grew up in Post-Independence India.
The years immediately after the sun set on the departed British Raj werecomplicated.
We weretorn between the end of a stable old colonial era in retreat - and the birth pangs of a vibrant new Republic.
We didn't really understand, at that time, the gravitas of India's first Prime Minister, Pandit Nehru's claim.
He greeted the dawn on that first day of India's Independence from Britain, the 15th of August, (coincidentally my birthday). "India has a Tryst with Destiny".
On that morning, the nation and the subcontinent would be changed - and the history books would have to be re-written.
It was a time of deep conflict.
Partition of a massive country, into three profoundly different entities was like playing 4D chess on steroids.
India, East Pakistan, and West Pakistan.
Hundreds of languages, dialects, diets, traditions, religions, prejudices, castes, creeds, and communities. And complex interpersonal relationships, forged over centuries, with the various admixtures of inter-marriage, love, betrayal, distrust, forgiveness, fear, and commerce which politics alone could never reconcile. Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Jains, Jews and countless others religions and castes - and a massive cohort of secularist humanists with no religion at all.