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Turning Old

Listened to this audiobook about the India Pakistan conflict while stuck driving for several hours over a couple of days. It felt like a decent primer on the topic not particularly erudite but not flippant either. It was almost perfect for the time and place where I spent time with it. It was particularly poignant because I heard this right around Independence Day. Back at work even though there are a lot of Indian people, the occasion went entirely unremarked. 

Maybe 77 is not a marquee milestone as far as birthdays go but it is a nice number. I tie the age of India as free country to my father's age - he is four years older than the nation, almost a Midnight's Child. I see the evolution of the country for the years that I was old enough to understand anything in parallel with my father transitioning from the prime of youth, his physical and mental abilities to his fading out years. While free India is in its infancy, those that came to the world around that time will not be around to see it much further than that stage. 

The book made me make a mental note to ask my father about his earliest recollections of how Aug 15 was celebrated when he was a child. Was it tainted with the pain of what followed afterwards or was earning freedom a big enough reward to overcome and overlook it all.

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