The Beckoning Land by Rowena Farre

Author:Rowena Farre
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9789085241522
Publisher: For the Benefit of Mr. Kite
Published: 1968-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

FOURTEEN

MY GOTRA

THE TEMPERATURE WAS still well above the century mark. There was quite a lot of sickness in the village. People living in tropical countries are more prone to illness during the peak of the hot season whereas in temperate lands it is during the winter months that people are more likely to become ill.

Dysentery and stomach upsets were what the villagers seemed to be suffering from most, caused by the intense heat. One of Golan’s children came round to tell me that his father was ill and so would not be able to work for me for a few days. I felt quite glad to have the house all to myself for a while.

I went out for an early morning walk as usual and on the way back I called at the Menon’s house. Yamini was not feeling well and was resting upstairs. Ashvin was sitting on the veranda studying a long parchment scroll.

“It’s my gotra,” he said; “my family tree. The name of each member has been written down by the priests at Nasik, a Brahmin town in central India where for centuries the priests have been keeping the records of Brahmin families throughout the country. My gotra is not quite so long as Satish’s, but it goes back now for almost nine-hundred years.”

The writing on the scroll was in Sanskrit. Ashvin told me that the various entries gave the dates of birth, marriage and death of each member of the family and the profession of the menfolk, most of whom had devoted their lives solely to priestly duties. The gotra stretched back to the time when Ashvin’s relatives were living up north in the Gangetic Valley, not far from the mighty Himalayas over which the ‘twice born’ had come. Some branches of the family had gradually moved further and further south until Ashvin’s branch had finally come to rest on the Malabar Coast.

“How far back can you trace your family?” he asked me.

“So far as individual members of it are concerned, only to my great-great-great-grandfather,” I replied.

I did some marketing on the way home and made myself a fruit drink when I got back. I felt I could have drunk the ocean. Drinks, fruit and the lightest of breakfasts and suppers is about all one can manage in this blazing heat.

I swept the room, then, my energies already exhausted, lay down and closed my eyes. I had a momentary recollection of Ashvin studying his gotra. That gave me an idea. I stretched out a hand for a pencil and my sketch-book and began writing down the names of my ancestors, drawing lines to connect one person to another. This did not take long for my own family, unlike the families of my Brahmin friends, could only be traced back through individual members for some seven generations. Nevertheless, I thought, short though my gotra might be in comparison to theirs, at least several of its members had been talented and interesting personalities.

The air rippled with waves of heat.

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