Thursday, December 23, 2010
Day 131 Saturday December 11th Shimla, visit to Viceroy's castle.
We visit the Viceroy's (Scottish looking)castle, now a postdoctoral research center for Indian Scholars, and are shown the room where Montbatten first showed Nehru the proposed partition of India into Pakistan and India. Montbatten apparently waited until Nehru was about to go to bed and Nehru took the boundary map up with him as bed-time reading. Strange to think that Ghandi, Nehru, Montbatten, Jenna were all here discussing such an important suject. The British cartographer had complained that he didn't have enough time to do a good job of determining the sensible boundary lines. Beginnings of Kashmir I suppose. Much migration and bloodshed followed the Partition. Ghandi had already walked out as a protest against the whole idea of partition. I ask to be shown the "Real-Tennis" court, the only one in all of India and I'm curious as to how it compares to Henry V's court at Hampton Court. The guide (who is a member of the sports club here) explains that they have just received an invitation from the British Real-Tennis club to accept their visit and a challenge match but he explains to me that they have declined the invitation since they use the court to play badminton and that they cannot really play the game of Real-Tennis. I urge him to accept the invitation, I'm sure the British Team were just after the thrill of playing here at the old British Raj Club.
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