“To look back isn’t necessarily to be nostalgic”
A fresh look at my roots
This follows the previous post on this topic here, and the next installment is here.
Update: Let me invite you to look at my blog chronicling my year in Kuwait here.
The title comes from this quote:
… To look back isn’t necessarily to be nostalgic… Winston Churchill my first Prime Minister said, “the further back you look, the further forward you see”… (“Elizabeth: The Unseen Queen”, BBC1 TV, 29/5/2022)
I co-counsel on my past to try and get to the bottom of my emotional baggage. I was a rebel teen who had loved Australia, rejected France and emigrated to Canada. I married a local lass, and leaving her spurred my self-rediscovery aided by my second wife. I recovered thus my Hungarian, French then refugee heritages 30, 20 and 10 years ago. Having repatriated to the UK from the US and left my second wife, I’m recovering the faith I grew up with: I believe it was the missing ingredient in two self-centered marriages — speaking only for myself and owning my mistakes — and I’m finding a voice, purpose and solace through God. Follow this series indexed in the subtitle for more.
A friend recently told me I look fitter (lost 8 kg. / 17 lb.) and happier (smile more and humour not so dark) since I “hard reset” my life earlier this year…
Just as in the TV show mentioned atop, photography has been important in my family’s life as a means to record events since before WWII. My father was an excellent photographer, and my brother arranged to have his slides as well as prints from family archives scanned about 10 yrs. ago — this filled almost half a DVD, and a selection of slides are posted as a collection — below is its title page. My late cousin’s ex also shared about 5 yrs. ago their annotated family print albums I posted here.
Late 2019 — early 2020 saw the Homelands exhibit at Cambridge Kettle’s Yard. Desmond Lazaro a miniaturist from Leeds UK now in Pondicherry IN interviewed six migrants incl. me, and my miniature is the third one from the left:
My album intro says: Desmond Lazaro miniaturist interviewed me as a Hungarian migrant and was struck by family photos, two of which he used to create a miniature capturing the essence of my experience: a boy travelling the world aged six, looking away from yet surveilled by two ancestors from pre-World Wars Budapest.
Homelands: Art from Bangladesh, India and Pakistan, 12 November 2019–2 February 2020, Kettles Yard Museum, Cambridge UK
The exhibit page is here. It scarcely mentions however Lazaro’s work to interview half a dozen refugees and to tell their stories in this exhibit, showing four at left in the shot above. It underscored nonetheless the interest in and usefulness of recording past histories, especially for migrants. Thank you Karen Thomas for facilitating this!
