Memories of a different , colonial, times

I was just down from the Nilgiris and still rather horsey so my doing a pics and text  story about Polo - the King  of Games and the Game of Kings, was no surprise.

I was not challenging  my colonial mindset, then. That began to happen when I saw where modern Polo had  been taken from  by imperial British Lancers. Manipur , an ancient  kingdom in the North East of India  is not far from Calcutta., the city that houses the oldest polo club in the world and was the Capital of the Imperial British Raj.

What began  the post colonisation of  my  mind was realising how a culturally important  ritual was appropriated and imperially reduced to  a game.

In Manipur an Oath was taken on a  bamboo polo ball. Offerings to ancient gods and godesses are polo sticks and balls.

 

the oldest Polo Club in the World . Calcutta . pic shot in the late 1970s

Delhi Polo Club   Pic shot in 1975

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Polo in Manipur, where  modern polo begins.  pic shot in early 1980s / the beginning of my 

post colonial mind.