Discovering genealogy…..

“If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten; either write things worthy of reading or do things worthy of writing.” — Benjamin Franklin

Reminded of these lines of Franklin as they came live when I had a new-gen young boy write to me in retaliation to an immature statement made by a woman; challenging his genealogy and that of his friends. Genealogy and indulging in research to study the roots of especially Bunt families has been of interest to me for long. But this young man shook me out of the complacent presumption that I had that the future has no clue of their past. While what annoyed me of the woman was her ignorance and her self-assumed pride which was unbearably smug about the youngsters of today. the lines of Edmund Burke, “People will not look forward to posterity who never looks backward to their ancestors”. I realised how true this was with this young Bunt lad and his understanding of the past of his forefathers. This young boy had discovered a bit of his family and the importance of genealogy for a modern-day youth. There was so much pride in him as he shared with me details of his great grandfather, who was not only an eminent politician but was also a progressive social reformer, a journalist who published and edited the weekly ‘Navayuga’ apart from being a writer of dramas, novels, and short stories. His great-grandson rambled to me tales of how his great grandfather had his grandson run up the Chamundi hills in Mysore as punishment and of how his house which was a mini-palace is filled with memorabilia. He then went on to speak of his grandparents and his father and the architecture and construct of his traditional Guthu home, the family home of the Bunts. While on the modern-day detailing and family tree, he shared with me a practice in their old family mansions, where each descendant family member when he turned 21, entered their name, a small description of themselves, their lineage and their career, titles and achievement in a red book which fits all of them in context. A moment of pride it must be for these young to pen down their names in the family book and read about their ancestors which in turn could build a deep pride for their legacy, their culture, and also their family homes.

While connecting with the past, the young man also spoke about how they were yet to make a difference in the world, an impact in the future, and of hope and dreams to build that self-worth in them and belonging to the family. A good connect indeed to enable these young to learn from their predecessors while their roots are further strengthened, as they follow their steps and bring in a difference and inspire them to do better and sustain the culture of the past. Tradition also has these old ‘guthu’ family mansions hang the portraits of their ancestors on the walls and as technology advanced; black and white to colour photographs of their ancestors. Surprisingly though there is a lack of physical documentation of this ancestral information and there is very little available on web search, I was glad to read the surge of information that the boy had to share with me about his family and their achievements in the past. In parallel with this or probably learnt from the British during the colonial regime, we have old English castles following to this day the practice of portrait making. Portraitists were commissioned by the British aristocracy to paint themselves so as to maintain them as family records and remembrances. Once the luxury of the rich and the powerful; with the advent of technology, modern homes can opt for creating records and documentation today and not bank on oral history, if we cultivate the habit of preserving and documenting after accurately verifying data. As an educator I perceive this to be a strong base for inquiry-based learning as followed by the IB programmes, where the young are taught research skills by practice to collect, record, verify data that lead to findings.

The benefits of making genealogy an infectious habit is that our youth get to reach to their family past, understand our culture, learn about their history, their family’s past that which has led to the present and will determine the future. This inheritance would be a priceless asset for the future that cannot be easily replaced. Documentation digitally or as the book mentioned when preserved for future generations as repositories would influence the youth of tomorrow. While reading on genealogy, I stumbled upon how in the earlier years, Hindu Brahmin pandits would actually maintain handwritten registers that used to be passed down to generations. These records would be dated as and when the families visited their hometowns or their districts. Hence, marriages, births, events were recorded in these registers and the pandit would be the custodian of these documents. Along with these chronicled dates, layers of association can be drawn on that person’s story or life or a particular trait. What an amazing way to walk back those years and live the life of the ancestor would it be for the future generation if these records are archived carefully as family inheritances.

A legitimate pride is what I saw in this young boy as he traced back the homes and personalities of his ancestors like the ancient Greeks and Romans whose pedigrees were traced back to the Sun, the Moon, and the Fire. As he gleamed and rambled about the Deva Rayas and their vassals and their ‘vamsas’ and dynasties, I could see history relive the old Kavatharu families, the Panja families and the connect to the list of kings who ruled then and the names of the youth of today and from where it originated. Their honourable ancestry makes them feel highly esteemed and dream of a better genealogy for their future to be chronicled in their family homes.

The idea of genealogy and the red and the black leathered covered thick, big book along with portraits and paintings and artifacts as the young man shared anecdotes on, is what I would urge the youth to pay attention to for as Pluto put it aptly…..

“It is a desirable thing to be well-descended, but the glory belongs to our ancestors”

Thank you young man for this wonderful discourse on links between the ages…….