On Histories

Language is a fascinating thing. So much of our identity, the way we process the world, the way we communicate, is dependent on it. It shapes our worldview, decides who our friends are, and plays a role in our biases and beliefs. And yet, it would be very rare that the language spoken by us would be the same language spoken by our great-great-grandparents. 

My daughter speaks mostly English; she thinks in English and prefers to consume information in English. For her, Hindi is a second language. While I think in Hinglish, I am comfortable in both languages. My grandparents were Punjabi speakers; they spoke the language amongst themselves and with my father. A little bit of Punjabi I picked up was because of hearing it around my house. What was the language their grandparents spoke? Was it the same Lahori Punjabi that I heard while growing up in my house? Or was the dialect a bit different, as I heard in my maternal great-grandparents' house?

During a pooja at home, the pandit ji asked for the name of my great-grandfather. This led me to trace my family tree. It appears that our roots are from Peshawar ( my grandfather's great-grandfather was born there). Then the family migrated to Lahore. From there, after the partition, to Delhi, then to Mumbai. Each generation would have been exposed to different cultures, customs and world views.

It fascinates me to think whether my great-great-great-grandparents would have ever imagined their progeny settling in a coastal town in western India? What would be the beliefs and biases that they would have carried? What was necessity and luxury for them? What were their dreams, aspirations and fears?

And then I think, what is common between them and me? I hold their DNA, passed on through centuries, but apart from it, would I relate to them? If a time machine is invented and we meet, what would we talk about? What topics would interest us both? Would we be friends? Or would I find kinship with people inhabiting these coastal islands then? Or would I be comfortable with the colonisers who spoke the language my daughter is now comfortable with? My skin colour would stop any fraternalising. 

So the question that remains - who am I?