The family tree puzzle

Back to roots

There is this Great Banyan Tree in the Indian Botanical Gardens on the banks of the Hooghly river near Kolkata that is often mistaken to be a forest rather than one giant tree. It is estimated to be over 250 years old and is possibly the largest, in terms of its spread, in Asia. The impression of a mini jungle is, perhaps, because of the 2,880 aerial roots reaching down the ground.

No doubt, as children, it was the prime attraction that offered us some kind of ‘action’ at the otherwise ‘drab and boring’ acres of rare flora species spread across its 109 hectares. The favourite game would go like this: We had to go around the ‘root branches’ to hunt for the mother trunk. The winner was the person who could find the main branch first, and the reward would invariably be an extra ice candy!

Memory fails if I ever won. But when I met 62-year-old Babu Baijoo on a grey, windy morning at Pietermaritzburg in South Africa, I did remember the game around the Great Banyan Tree on the banks of the Hooghly. Babu Baijoo is a fourth generation South African of Indian origin, and holds the post of the Speaker of Msunduzi Municipality, Pietermaritzburg. Like many others of his generation in SA, Baijoo has been trying to trace his ancestral roots in India, but has so far been unsuccessful. “My great grandfather, whose records state that his name was Thulsi, arrived here in the late 1890s. He worked as a labourer for a wattle farmer in Kranskop, KwaZulu Natal. My maternal grandparents were the Bitchus, whose colonial numbers I am in possession of. However, I have absolutely no idea where they came from,” says Baijoo. He adds that he would gladly welcome any information on them, and is keen to visit India.

Devlyn Naidoo, 19-year-old college student in Durban, has more luck on his side. He says his paternal and maternal grandparents came from South India and names Chennai and Bangalore as his ancestral homes. Caught in the middle of the FIFA frenzy and equally excited about seeing Kareena Kapoor, who he claims is in SA for the World Cup, Devlyn, nonetheless agrees to search his past.

“Sometimes I often wonder, had my forefathers not taken that decision to hide on the ship and come to Durban, I probably would have been living in Bangalore and would have probably attended an Indian college,” he says. But quickly adds that though “our roots are in India, we are now very much South Africans. So the  Naidoos, Moodleys, Pillays, Singhs, Maharajs and Kapoors in South Africa all have their roots across the different states in India. It is the exports of India in the year 1860 and onwards, that has helped immensely in building, developing and creating this wonderful country which we now call home.”

The story of migration is perhaps as old as the story of mankind itself. People either driven out of their homes by poverty and deprivation, or those who sought better prospects, leaving behind one home for another better one.

One could never have guessed that the upmarket, real estate paradise that is now Umhlanga in the north coast of Durban, was formerly an infinite stretch of sugarcane fields. It is difficult to imagine that colonial steamers would have off loaded their ‘human load’ here on the same harbour where ferries with their beautiful sails and fishing boats remain anchored in luxurious wait.

The history of modern Indian diaspora can be traced to the 19th century during and till the end of the British rule. Burdened by the end of slavery, the White colonists devised an ingenious scheme to keep the Empire running — that of indenture labour. “The Indians signed up for five years’ bonded labour, six days a week, nine hours a day. In return, they received round-trip passage on a converted slave ship plus a small wage, with deductions for food and illness. Those who enlisted called it the girmit system, a mispronunciation of the word agreement,” writes Minal Hajratwala, in Leaving India, My family’s journey from five villages to five continents.

These girmityas, as they called each other, left for sugar mills and plantations in Mauritius, Guyana, the Caribbean, Fiji, East and South Africa. Besides the girmitya ‘coolies’ (the British referred to them thus), there were a fair number of Indians who paid their way on these ships in the hope of making a better life.

The first indentured Indians arrived on the ‘Truro’, a paddle steamer from Madras on November 17,1860. The second ship, ‘Belvidera’, arrived soon afterwards from Calcutta which reached Port Natal on November 26, 1860. Devlyn and his family will be part of the 150 year celebration planned across South Africa of the arrival of the first batch of indentured labour.

“My mum’s grandparents were among the indentured labourers who came from India to Durban onboard the ‘Truro’ in 1860. My paternal grandfather arrived in Durban on the same ship, and my parents tell me it was poverty that made them serve indenture. Little did they know that they were going to be used as slaves on the sugarcane fields located on the north and south coast of Durban,” says Devlyn, remembering dinner table conversations shared by the family.

According to Devlyn, his grandmother, late Devanai Moodley, “was of an extremely light complexion and had green eyes. When she arrived in Durban, the British imperialists stripped her of her jewellery.” But because of her light complexion, she was not given the menial task of working on a sugarcane field, but was employed as a servant by a wealthy British family. They treated her as one of “their own”. “My great grandfather Jack Ponnen was, however, darker, and was allocated the duty of ploughing and toiling under the harsh African sun. He earned a weekly wage of one pound sterling and used to tie this in his handkerchief around his head in the style of a turban,” adds Devlyn. His great grandfather went on to lay the foundation of one of the oldest temples (123 years) in Durban, the Shree Siva Soobramaniar Temple.

At the historic Mariamma temple where the Naidoos frequent, there are many others like them, who have made this land their own with a shared knowledge that they came from elsewhere. They keep that India around them through Bollywood movies, fashion and satellite television — watching the dramas unfold which are at once alien as they are familiar.

Yet there are others, who in Hajratwala’s words “are seeking, studying or shopping for some myth of our origins.” The Indian ministry of overseas affairs runs a project for the people of Indian origin to trace their roots . There are other online genealogical research sites offering information.

But it is not an easy task, as Baijoo so very well knows. When the Indians arrived on these ports they were absolutely at the mercy of their White masters. They could not speak the language, let alone correct the spellings of their names. According to Ancestry 24, an online research site, “The computerisation of the Indian shipping lists presents special problems for the researcher. The first is the condition of the original registers. Some, as for example vol.1 (Madras), has many of the initial pages missing, others are torn or have the numbers and first names destroyed.” 

People like Shameem and Jeevan relied on family lore to make their journey ‘home’. “I remember going to Gujarat in India, from where my ancestors supposedly came from,” says Shameem, an English professor. She recalls her travel, first by air, then rail and finally road that brought her to a nondescript village. “There’s pretty much nothing left for me there, yet it felt good to have made that journey.”

Jeevan, a third generation South African, first visited India out of curiosity. “My forefathers came from Rajasthan and I loved that place,” he says. Since then he has made several trips to India as an NRI tourist.

Every year, the Indian government — “eager to market nostalgia via business investments, shopping and tourism” — lays out the red carpet for the ever growing non- resident Indian in what it calls the Pravasi Diwas. Hundreds come to renew their links with the mother country. They know it is only a symbolic ritual, for now the alien land is home.

Nobody told us then that the mother trunk of the Great Banyan Tree at the Botanical Gardens has been lost long since. A search on the Internet reveals that in 1925, after it became diseased following a lightning stroke, the middle of the tree was excised to keep the remainder healthy; this has left it as a clonal colony, rather than a single tree. A 330 m long road was built around its circumference, but the tree continues to spread beyond it.