WHAT DETERMINES OUR ROOTS?

WHAT DETERMINES OUR ROOTS

There was some talk about temporary roof and roots during the discussions with Syamala. A roof is a roof temporary or permanent but I was wondering what determines our roots. Is it the place of our birth, country of our origin, community and religion we are born to or the mother tongue.

I was born in Saharanpur, U. P. India to parents born and brought up in a remote village in the hills of Uttarakhand India. Am I an Uttarakhandi or UPwala or simply Indian? I was born to Hindu parents and I also follow the same and that decides my religion. My mother tongue is Garhwali which I speak very rarely because I do not find many people around speaking this language now. All Uttarakhandies living in towns and cities in India or abroad speak the local language or English. My children do even understand Garhwali.

There would be millions of people like me who or whose children have lost their original roots, mother tongue and even religion (thanks to conversion). Indians who migrated to other countries and have opted for citizenship there should still consider themselves of Indian origin. May be. But their children born in that country will and should call themselves as origins of that country. Thus a first or second generation child will be rooted in that country.

What is it that a man travels all the way from the far off West Indies to look for his roots in India after say about 300 years of his great grandfather was brought there as a farm laborer? Why would third generation Americans are still called Indian American or African American?

Looks the more we try to run away from our roots the more curious we are to know about our roots.