A tale across many seas...many generations....

Ganges in Rishikesh

This is my second time in India. My first time was in December 2005 and that time was a magical experience...it was like a homecoming of sorts...though I do consider myself a Trini....India holds a special place in my heart...the place where my ancestors left many years ago and travelled across many seas to reach the Caribbean...and set their feet on Trinidad soil. They must have been brave...and a tad adventurous...to go so far...I did ask my grandmothers the story and they both told me.

My Aggee which is my father's mother told me that her grandmother left India with her two young sons to come to the West Indies. She did not know why she left, and also was not sure what happened to my great grandfather. For a woman, alone with two small children to make that trip would have been very courageous especially in those times...when you would not have known where you were going. My  Nani also told me the love story of her grandparents who fell in love on the boat...that went India to  Guyana...where they did their indentureship and decided to go back India after they had finished. However when they did, they were disowned by their family so they came back to Trinidad where they sat on the Savannah until someone took them to the St. Madeline Sugar Plantation.

There are so many similarities between the two countries. When I first saw the Himalayas when I stayed in Rishikesh, it reminded me so much of our Northern Range in Trinidad...when I am driving on the Highway going North...I will have to post pictures so you can see. There are also temples ever so often when you are in India...and you don't have to worry about sitting crossed legged...like I might do sometimes in work when no one is looking...because in India this is normal.  

So India I travelled again...back to where my forefathers came...the smell of the earth...the air makes me nostalgic...And I imagined for some reason like it was like coming full circle...that they had left to come Trinidad...and here I was back in India...this magical place where the sand banks of the Ganges sparkle as though they came from heavan...and if you know the story of the Ganges you would know she did...