Today I go to Kenya. I am 44 years old and this will be my 5th or 6th visit over a span of nearly 25 years. But this is the first time I get to really explore one part of my heritage, my Father’s upbringing.
There is a point in time for many of us where we begin to be more reflective about our lives, how we have lived and how we want to live. For me this started a few years ago, perhaps in my late 30s, but I have thought more and more about it over the past few years.
For those of us who become reflective it becomes important to go seek answers. So I invite you to go on this journey with me. To experience what I experience over the next couple of weeks, while I document/ journal my reflections. Come with me and experience what I know will be an emotional time. Also, I hope will give me greater clarity about the person I am, as I truly believe that we are products of our parents upbringing and we are potentially shaped by the influences and experiences of our parents well before any of us are born.
But let me be clear, I do not intend to be defined by those answers. I seek clarity so I am prepared to pay attention and understand. I am prepared to learn. I am prepared to reshape the way I see my world — to let go of the things that have defined me, to let go of things that don’t serve me, to be free of anything that restricts me.
While this is my voyage of self-discovery, I hope it will inspire you to begin yours. If you have already embarked please do share your experiences and if you have yet to embark — good luck.
I have always described myself as a British Asian of Indian descent. My parents were born in the area that was formally India but now Pakistan. I always understood that my Mother’s family moved to India when the partition happened. I know more about her upbringing and how she lived. I know more about her heritage, her childhood and her youth. But I did not really understand until recently what my Father’s family did. I know so little about his heritage, his childhood, youth and adulthood. I know so little about his biological heritage, where he came from.
I know he was literate at one point in Urdu and Kiswahili — I was in awe of this but I don’t think I ever really appreciated it — I suspect due to lack of practice he forgot those languages by the time I came along (in 1975). I fear the same will happen to me with my Mother Tongue — lack of practice makes speaking Punjabi challenging!
I knew he was taken to Kenya from a very young age (he was registered as a minor, at 2 and a half years old), but little did I appreciate his ties to the country before he moved to the UK in the 1960s. My Father died nearly 21 years ago — and I did not ask him or talk to him about these things. I wish I had. At my age now I regret not having those conversations, but then Dad never invited them. He did not dwell on the past outwardly, although I suspect he did inwardly. And I was too focused on my present, living the now as teenagers tend to do.
I have decided I am going to do a timeline of events — if that is at all possible.
My Father attended a school from a very young age in Nakuru, Kenya — as my sister put it, he wasn’t Indian but African. This is a realisation that comes late in our lives. I have yet to make sense it, of what it means if anything.
He was a member of the Rift Valley Scouts Association — a proud Scout — the first to achieve the Queens Scout Badge in the Rift Valley Area — but we did not know this until I came across the documents. We have a lovely framed photo of him wearing proudly his Scouts Shirt with all the badges.
He worked for the East African Railways and Harbours Cooperation — from the documents it shows he have had different roles, but he was retired early when Kenya achieved independence and all posts were reverted to Kenyan Africans. My Father, among many, left Kenya, but I have no clue how this made him feel, if he had regrets about leaving and whether he missed the country where he grew up.
My Father was married in Kenya, to a lady I will never know and didn’t know of until I was a young teenager. My eldest sister was born in Kenya, and all our aunts and uncles were born there. Their origins are African and their heritage Indian for all intents and purpose. I now have a new appreciation of what this might actually mean for me, for my sisters, for my sister’s children, for us all as descendants.
My Father was an avid keeper of documents, for this reason I know a bit more about him and I also know from where and whom I learned the same behavior.
So here I go, embarking on a new journey for the first time, to a country I love visiting, to find knowledge and a deeper understanding of those who raised me. Wish me luck — it’s going to be an emotional one!
