Heera Aunty hugs me tight and refuses to let go!!
My family has an interesting history, as most Indian and Pakistani families affected by the events of 1947-1948 do.
Starting in 1498, India had regular contact with Europe with the advent of Vasco de Gama who arrived on the west coast and started trading in spices and other goods. The British arrived in 1600 under a charter from Queen Elizabeth I and set up the East India Company. It expanded and, after retaining armies and playing one ruler against another in the waning years of the Mughal Empire, they were able to build up a sizeable landmass that came under the rule of the East India Company. Decisive battles against the French, their main rivals, culminating in the Battle of Plassey in 1757 made Britain the main European power in India. The War of Indian Independence/Sepoy Mutiny of 1857, and its subsequent reforms, brought all the land directly under Crown control in 1858, and Queen Victoria was claimed Empress of India. The Anglo-Sikh and Anglo-Mysore wars and other wars, skirmishes and deals increased British land assets and led to what eventually came to be known as British India.
The Amritsar Massacre of 1919 at Jallianwallah Bagh unofficially kicked off the Indian independence movement led by Mahatma Gandhi, which led to the partition of British India into India and Pakistan and their independence in 1947. That, in a nutshell, is the history of modern India.
When British India was partitioned into India and Pakistan, the new countries went through what was arguably the bloodiest period in their history since the Kalinga War (which led Emperor Ashoka to renounce everything and convert to and spread Buddhism.) Mass migration from India to Pakistan and vice versa led to thousands of people being slaughtered along religious lines and war broke out between India and Pakistan over the disputed region of Kashmir. Kashmir remains the main bone of contention between the two countries today. A good book to read on the events leading up to Indian independence is Freedom at Midnight by Dominique LaPierre and Larry Collins.
My grandfather, Flying Officer Umesh Tonse, got his wings at RAF Cranwell, which is Britain's Air Force academy. When war broke out between India and Pakistan in 1947 he was deployed with his squadron to fly troops fighting on the new Indo-Pak border. He was the co-pilot of a military version of the Douglas DC-3 Dakota when it crashed into Banihal Pass in the Himalayas on October 31, 1947 . He was missing in action for a year and was then classified as killed in action. The bodies were not recovered until 1981 when mountaineers searching for the crash site of a Russian plane found the wreckage of the Dakota. The remains were brought back to Delhi for a funeral with full military honors.
Heera Aunty is my grandfather's sister. Visiting her was great because she is the only link left to my grandfather from that generation who is still alive.
When I walked into her apartment, Heera Aunty got very emotional because she was seeing me for the first time in 15 years and because she repeatedly said that I reminded her a lot of her brother, my grandfather. She kept saying "you look just like him" and she hugged me and wouldn't let go!
Doodle, Heera Aunty and me.
After lunch at Heera Aunty's apartment.
I also found out that my great grandfather, Heera Aunty's father, was the Grand Master of the Freemasons in Bangalore in the 1920s!
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