Can I have a quote/s that show the historical context in Climbing the Stairs by Padma Venkatraman?

"In my mind's eye, my chess pieces had grown into lines of dark-skinned men marching forward, being beaten by a white army and crumpling one by one into my father's waiting arms, bloodstains blossoming across their shoulders." pg. 32

"And even in the midst of all the uncertainty and change that lay ahead, of the reality of the evacuation and the Axis creeping closer to Indian soil, and of Kitta fighting on some faraway battlefield, I felt nothing but pure joy for a few moments: joy that I would soon be leaving the house, joy that I would go to college and that someday Raman and I would be more than friends." pg. 237