Roots

As a teenager, I always tried to make sense out of Alex Haley’s book “Roots” which my dad passed on to me for killing time on one summer vacation. My age & lack of experience prevented me from understanding the crux of Haley’s experience. I mean what’s the point of going through the entire heck to discover where your forefathers belong? I also noted it as a kid that my dad harnessed immense importance to his “Roots” or the place where our family actually belonged to in Madhya Pradesh. My only visit to our ancestral small town in MP was as a reluctant teenager & the only reason I visited the place was to make my dad happy. For me, my roots have always been in Nagpur. Place where I was born, grew up, made friends & spent the most valuable period of my life. No matter where I go in India or abroad, my heart calls only this place home. The more I traveled, the more I realized that as my life traces most of its attributes to my family; which again traces roots to MP, Nagpur, My mom’s side, My grandma’s side. So “Me” actually is a maze of all these places with whom I had this subtle connection that I was not aware of consciously. This is a theory, which applies to us all, & now Alex Haley’s hard work makes sense completely.