Love in the Empire

This novel is a work of non-fictional autobiographical style story of love between an English girl who was a nurse and an East African Gujarati boy from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, who aspired to be a lawyer and judge in his career and went to England to pursue studies.This story spans the post colonial period of the nineteen-sixties when inter-racial marriages were a rarity and frowned upon on both sides. The story describes the challenges of such love that blossomed in England but carried the couple’s lives through London, Berlin, and then Toronto where the couple settled and where Arun made his legal career which ended with being a deputy judge.A historical section has been added in the novel to explain the post colonial institutions, including race relations, with a summary of the European conflicts of the Second World War which the author describes as the Second European War. There is a brief description of institutions including the London School of Economics and Lincoln’s Inn which the main character attended and which influenced both the main character and the post colonial history.The love story begins with the meeting of Arun and Deepa who were of the same Indian caste, and who planned to marry after completion of Arun’s studies. Deepa, insecure of the relationship for a prolonged period, has an affair with another man and when Arun finds this he terminates the relationship, leaving him alone in England where he meets a girl of German-Polish origin who is also lonely and their meeting strikes a bond which blossoms into a deep relationship and conflict and Ingrid leaves England without telling Arun of her departure. His pangs of love lead Arun to find Ingrid and he accidentally meets her at the Free University of Berlin, where Arun studied economics.Cancer strikes Ingrid and she wanted Arun to meet her beautiful blond cousin who is a look alike of Ingrid at the University of Humboldt. At the meeting at Humboldt University Ursula asks Arun to marry her so she can come out of East Berlin and also fulfill her cousin’s dream to have a family with Arun.Arun’s ambition to be a barrister leads him to depart West Berlin for London to complete studies at Lincoln’s Inn. There he learns of the painful demise of Ingrid. As time passes Arun meets an English girl, Lisa, whose ancestors came from Germany, and Arun is drawn to her and they fall in love.Unable to be a barrister and unwilling to compromise his career as a barrister, Arun sets out for Canada where he attends Osgoode Hall and completes his law degree and begins practice. He invites his bride whom he had married in a civil ceremony in Brighton, England, after talking to an Anglican priest who had suggested going to Canada.Arun and Lisa settle in Brampton, Ontario, a small town north west of Toronto where the couple raise their children. Arun’s Indian parents who were forced to leave Tanzania after independence went to India and from there visit their son who was by then a deputy judge in Canada. His parents attend the court and meet the son in its chambers where the family have an emotional reunion to talk about the dream of the son to be a lawyer and who fulfilled his mission. Jay Chauhan