Roots...not the earthy variety...
No...not even close to "Roots" by Alex Haley...but something similar I have to say...infact, something similar to the authors feelings...
Have you ever been proud of your roots? Your ancestry? How you happened to be...in this world...in this time...?? Tempted to answer in the positive aren't you?? :)
Well...in my case, I had loads pride in being a national of my country. But never did it occur to me to be proud of my religion...to be proud of my ancestry...I was just proud of being who I am...the person...my thoughts...my actions....how blessed I am with my cool parents...how I turned out because of them and lot others. But...I never gave a serious thought to this thing about my...roots.
I am agnostic...I believe I am responsible for my own destiny and that, the things I do shape my thought and the things I think guide my action...well...it seems not to be so simple...cos I started thinking...thinking...only very recently in my short time spent on this planet...a very short time indeed...
What was I doing until then...I dunno...following the crowd maybe...just another rat in that race...just another brick in the wall...I dunno...and I dont wanna ponder on that as well. But my point is this, in the time before my cocoon burst, circumstances have shaped me in both the positive and negative side of things...so, there are still some things with respect to my thought process that I am still not in control of...
Let me come back to the main idea of this blog entry...
I was talking of things that I am not in control of anymore...for example, recently here in a foreign country (where I am going to spend some part of my near future...), I met some people from my native country. Ok...fine. It was nice to see so many people...but whatha hell, my country is more than a billion...so, not so surprised. Ah ha...but some were from my regional state within my country, we share the same mother tongue...again, no big surprise. Ah ha...but again, some were from the same college as my undergrad univ...guess what, still I was not so surprised...because those people who are really interested in this field have good chances of landing up here where I am studying right now. Hmm...I bet you are now wondering...does this guy actually have any feeling for nostalgia and all that...haha!! Believe me, I do...I was just expressing my lack of surprise.
But then...there was something that surprised me...I was surprised by my own reactions and feelings after being exposed to one teeny weeny fact. Some people here are from my own religious subsect. Creed if you will...Tirunelveli Sivapillai to be exact. This kind of this never happened to me before...never when I was in my native country. Now, I am agnostic...I dont pray voluntarily...god is just a concept for me...I hate any religious propaganda...I love unity, fairness and peace. But such a person would not expect himself or herself to be affected in an emotional level with something as stupid as meeting another person from the same sub caste or whatever that shit is called...but I was. It felt warm...to listen to these people reminiscing about our common city of ancestry...about the street next to the temple where our grandfathers used to play...I mean, I have not seen my fathers native place more than a coupla times...I was not stirred much by its sight till date...but listening to a relative stranger talk about it shook and stirred something inside me...
Was it me being in a foreign country...?? Was it my own growing maturity?? Was it due to all the family members who I met before flying out of my country?? Was it the insignificance of the mathematical figure deciding the probability of meeting such people in such a place at such a time?? Maybe...might be...maybe...
Your roots...I guess, the knowledge of it is enough to instill a subconscious pride of your lineage. Of course, none of us are descendants of the Eldar, the elves of the light. Haha...but this pride...damn, its cool! My roots...it does not matter if my great great great grand mom was the product of a foreign chromosome...whatever...it doesn't matter. Its now...your roots...its still something still very much in the present...but gains it charm from the past. Stupid thing to say right? No, I think not...you are already a branch of that tree, whether you like it or not. If you are lucky, you can be proud of it as much as you are proud of yourself...how you turned out. Its a wonderful thought thinking of this...evolution damn!!! Have you read that book that I mentioned in the first sentence of this entry??? One of my favs...maybe I feel this way cos I was easily able to appreciate that book.
Anyways, I wish both you and your tree the very best. So goes the ending...
Have you ever been proud of your roots? Your ancestry? How you happened to be...in this world...in this time...?? Tempted to answer in the positive aren't you?? :)
Well...in my case, I had loads pride in being a national of my country. But never did it occur to me to be proud of my religion...to be proud of my ancestry...I was just proud of being who I am...the person...my thoughts...my actions....how blessed I am with my cool parents...how I turned out because of them and lot others. But...I never gave a serious thought to this thing about my...roots.
I am agnostic...I believe I am responsible for my own destiny and that, the things I do shape my thought and the things I think guide my action...well...it seems not to be so simple...cos I started thinking...thinking...only very recently in my short time spent on this planet...a very short time indeed...
What was I doing until then...I dunno...following the crowd maybe...just another rat in that race...just another brick in the wall...I dunno...and I dont wanna ponder on that as well. But my point is this, in the time before my cocoon burst, circumstances have shaped me in both the positive and negative side of things...so, there are still some things with respect to my thought process that I am still not in control of...
Let me come back to the main idea of this blog entry...
I was talking of things that I am not in control of anymore...for example, recently here in a foreign country (where I am going to spend some part of my near future...), I met some people from my native country. Ok...fine. It was nice to see so many people...but whatha hell, my country is more than a billion...so, not so surprised. Ah ha...but some were from my regional state within my country, we share the same mother tongue...again, no big surprise. Ah ha...but again, some were from the same college as my undergrad univ...guess what, still I was not so surprised...because those people who are really interested in this field have good chances of landing up here where I am studying right now. Hmm...I bet you are now wondering...does this guy actually have any feeling for nostalgia and all that...haha!! Believe me, I do...I was just expressing my lack of surprise.
But then...there was something that surprised me...I was surprised by my own reactions and feelings after being exposed to one teeny weeny fact. Some people here are from my own religious subsect. Creed if you will...Tirunelveli Sivapillai to be exact. This kind of this never happened to me before...never when I was in my native country. Now, I am agnostic...I dont pray voluntarily...god is just a concept for me...I hate any religious propaganda...I love unity, fairness and peace. But such a person would not expect himself or herself to be affected in an emotional level with something as stupid as meeting another person from the same sub caste or whatever that shit is called...but I was. It felt warm...to listen to these people reminiscing about our common city of ancestry...about the street next to the temple where our grandfathers used to play...I mean, I have not seen my fathers native place more than a coupla times...I was not stirred much by its sight till date...but listening to a relative stranger talk about it shook and stirred something inside me...
Was it me being in a foreign country...?? Was it my own growing maturity?? Was it due to all the family members who I met before flying out of my country?? Was it the insignificance of the mathematical figure deciding the probability of meeting such people in such a place at such a time?? Maybe...might be...maybe...
Your roots...I guess, the knowledge of it is enough to instill a subconscious pride of your lineage. Of course, none of us are descendants of the Eldar, the elves of the light. Haha...but this pride...damn, its cool! My roots...it does not matter if my great great great grand mom was the product of a foreign chromosome...whatever...it doesn't matter. Its now...your roots...its still something still very much in the present...but gains it charm from the past. Stupid thing to say right? No, I think not...you are already a branch of that tree, whether you like it or not. If you are lucky, you can be proud of it as much as you are proud of yourself...how you turned out. Its a wonderful thought thinking of this...evolution damn!!! Have you read that book that I mentioned in the first sentence of this entry??? One of my favs...maybe I feel this way cos I was easily able to appreciate that book.
Anyways, I wish both you and your tree the very best. So goes the ending...
posted by Maharaj at 10/22/2005 03:51:00 AM
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