Tag Archives: family history

Me as a Memoirist

Journal,

Me as a Memoirist.

How I keep memories alive. 

I am fortunate in that I often dream of people from my past.  I dream of the life I shared with them, and I dream I am doing the things I wish I had done with them.

In my last dream Daddy was here in Chicago, walking with me and my grandson in Millennium Park.  In my dream we laughed and talked, and he and his long white beard were the same as when I left him and India 48 years ago.  I could only see wisps of my own hair, and my 12 year old grandson was vivid in the picture, skipping along beside me, talking to Sivaraam Appoo, that is what he would have called his great grandfather, my dad, if he was here now.

My Dad has been gone for forty years.  My dream evoked memories of the time he and I walked the Botanical Gardens and Zoo in Trivandrum, South India, where I lived until I was twenty three.  I close my eyes, and I can hear his rich, vibrant voice telling me I could be, and could do anything I wished in life, if I believed in myself.  More so, he instilled in me the belief that the divine power of God is within each of us.

This dream not only triggered memories of Dad, but made me look up other stories from my past I had already written.

I plan to share them, soon.

A Writer Writes

Indian culture,

A Writer writes.

As an Author, I need to write my story.

Every one of us has our own unique story to tell the world.

I feel it is important to tell the young members of my family growing up here, the experiences of a first generation Indian from Thiruananthapuram, Kerala, India, who settled here in the sixties.

Where Raj and I came from, our given name is usually our ‘surname’ or ‘last name’ and is often used as the official name in business and documents.

So, when our progeny looks up ancestory.com, the search will end with the first person who came here.  Unless the entire family sticks to a common last name, or follows the family name, no previous history will be found.

Hence, it is necessary that we put down in words all about where and who we came from.

It is important that they know not only of the growing pains of young immigrants in this land where the language, the food, the clothes and the customs are different, but also of the joy and the spirit of comradery among us newcomers that enabled us to get accustomed to the place we made our home.

Above all, they need to know why it is important to remember people who helped us survive the tough winters and show them why we need to pay forward  to those who come after us.

I personally have this need to tell them how our Indian element became an integral part of the melting pot that is the United States of America.

I have been telling my story to anyone who wishes to listen, and am determined to put together my next book of how I was:  Transplanted  from 100°F in the shade to 10°F in the sun, in a twenty four hour period. I will also tell how our love for each other kept me and my husband Raj going, despite all odds.