My Lineage!

There are a lot of stories we are told when we are young about where we come from. As a child, we used to hardly ever go to cremations and all other rituals, little did we know the intensity that is attached to it. But when a member of your own family is no more and you end up performing all the rituals, you understand life and you understand your roots far better. 

Traditions have a way of catching up to you as you grow up. Your entire being, who you are, is brought forth when you engage in rituals that belong to your religion. Punjabis are known to be flamboyant, care free people but at the time of either celebration or mourning, there are a number of things that you need to do. It's crazy how diligently one follows through these customs just to provide freedom to the soul of your loved one. From lighting a lamp under the peepal tree till the time the funeral pyre is set up, how you should not cook food in your home and it has to be provided to you by your neighbors, friends or relatives and between all those rituals, I got so much information about my background that even talking to my dad I never knew. We never really talk of such things and how we keep ourselves busy with the mundane talks is one of the things that hit me. Knowing how I felt, I will make sure that the kids in our family know where they come from.

The part that intrigued me the most was when we went to Haridwar and then to Poeha for dad and saw the entire clan's history where now his name joined his forefathers. People really had funny names from that era, like my great great grand dad was named Chunni Lal, like seriously and he was the first teacher in Rawalpindi to teach English to Britishers in India. My grand dad, a lawyer in Rawalpindi was a rather famous one. His dad, Chowdhary Hansraj, was a landlord and had hoards of property. In fact he used to be very close friends with Radhaswami second guru, they used to play chess together and we have his turban in our family running through down the generation. In fact, when we went to Agra to do ardaas for him, the present guru remembered him and we treated like royalty. Chowdhary Hansraj's grand daughters had come, that meant something. I wish he was alive and we would have gone together because there are stories that only he would know now. All of my grand dad's were named after the Radhaswami gurus and so was my dad. Satguru Saran, that was him, before he changed his name. So many stories I heard that I wish we had more time to talk. Life does leave you unsatisfied in the end, that bitch!