All Talk and No Action Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Just got off the phone.

Usual Friend. Usual chatter. Just today it was about meri saat pedhiyaan.

Family trees have always been a source of fascination.

Who were the grand-parents of my grand-parents ?

Where did my family originate ?

What did my ancestors do for a living ?

What ticked them...what they ate...how they passed their days... their motivations ...the school of thought they belonged to...

And finally why am I the way I am ?

Do I have someone in the tree I have taken after ?

I learnt about my seven generations yesterday. Well. Not everything. But good amount enough for the time being.

I already knew about four and getting to know more about the saat peedhiyaan had proven to be difficult. But yesterday, during a family reunion, amidst lots of laughter, buffoonery and some real and fake hugs, I learnt about where my ancestors came from and what they did for a living.

Digging out all that there is on Mattas will always be a labour of love. I can't pin it down to a single reason.

I don't even know what I will do with the Family Tree, that is, if it ever gets completely made.

I am sure I wouldn't want to get in touch with all the cousins. Definitely not.

Yet, filling in the blanks would make me happy.

Cut to the "Phone-a-Friend". All I got from my friend was some laughs, lots of his usual blah and blah and general disinterest in talking about his Roots.

Yet another showed a mild disinterest in the topic and waved it off over chat.

A colleague dared to laugh when I bubbled with excitement over this whole business.

Heck even my cousins couldn't stop laughing over my wide eyed expression as I drank all the information floating around yesterday.

Really, are people in general not interested in their History, Culture and let me be a little mean here, their roots ?

Or Do I really get excited about stupid things ?


6 comments:

What's in a name? said...

ok...there is one thing in which we both have common interest...I have always being interested in knowing family history, infact just a couple of month back (count 5), I actually created a family tree from My Dad's side and Mom's side in excel (yeah...in excel, laugh at it for me being such a nerd)...but unfortunately I just created this tree of four and three generations respectively...seven generations is way too much...but good idea!!!

All Talk and No Action said...

@What's in a name - I am almost in tears to find out that we have atleast "one thing" in common :)

Btw, maybe you should share how you went about collecting all the info. Might be useful for me too.

What's in a name? said...

i knew about the last three generations...which would comprise of my Grandpa, dad and then me...uske upar ka not too sure, so made the sheet with whatever info I had...u want me to mail you that sheet???

All Talk and No Action said...

@Whats in a name - Yes please. might be helpful. thanks.

Anonymous said...

Nice idea...Even I shd try this one...tho m not much interested unless my ancestors are from some royal family :)

All Talk and No Action said...

@allthecrap - Oh then pls start the "digging" and let us know if hail from some Chittor ke Rajwado ke ghar se.