“Sir aap gaon Kakrali, zillah Gujrat ke rehne wale hain ?” (Sir are you from the village called Kakrali in district Gujrat ?), the priestly attired guy asks me when I reach “Ramgiri ki Haveli” (Ramgiri’s mansion) in a narrow by lane of Haridwar – the holy city of the Hindus. These days it hardly looks like a mansion with small randomly arranged rooms rented out to many people like him. It has taken me well over an hour to locate this guy but one word with me and he has figured out where I am from !
I am on a journey with my brother in law to trace our ancestry, having driven 5 hours from Delhi to reach this small town on the foothills of the Himalayas where the holy river Ganges emerges from the mountains into the plains. The other purpose is the immersion of my father in law’s ashes as he recently passed away.
Haridwar is a pilgrimage center of ancient repute amongst the Hindus and is a series of such places spread across the Indian subcontinent. Hindus of all kinds visit one of these places at least once in their lifetime – whether happy & alive for taking a dip in the holy waters (literally called “Sukh snan” or happy bath) or dead & in an urn full of their ashes for immersion into the holy waters. An essential part of this life ritual is to find the “panda” or priest from your place of origin and enter into the “bahi khata” (literally meaning – a book of accounts) and enter the name of the relatives who have just died and along with them the names of your descendants for your future generations to see.
This has been followed for many generations of Hindus, some say for thousands of years. And these “Bahi khatas” now form a historical genealogical record of Hindus that goes back centuries.
I walk up the narrow stairs with him into a small dimly lit room full of bound reams of papers while he chats me about some other people with the same last name as me – “Bedi”, that have their family details in these books. He seems to remember a cousin of mine, who is now a famous Bollywood actor but had come here many decades ago to immerse his mother’s ashes along with my dad. He even remembered the fact that at that time my now famous cousin had barely started his film career. And mind you – he had not yet opened any book to read my ancestry !
This ritual has very interesting beginnings. As part of the Hindu tradition, one is supposed to go on pilgrimages to one or more of these holy places, especially to one that is closest to your place of residence. Of course some folks are more ambitious and visit many of the far away pilgrimage centers as well. While these days these places are typically a few hours away from large metropolitan areas using modern means of transportation but in times past, these were a “once in a lifetime” arduous journeys undertaken at great cost and peril. It was not certain how long it would take or whether you would even return alive. Hence folks started the practice of entering their names into these record books so that even if they did not reach back alive, someone from their family in a subsequent pilgrimage would be able to ascertain the fate of the ancestor’s pilgrimage.
Recording your name is fine but it also needed to be entered in the same register consistently for it to have value and trace ability. This was an opportunity for the priests at these pilgrimage centers to also apportion parts of the countryside amongst themselves for record keeping. This was usually based on ancestral villages and districts.
And this is how I wind up reaching this guy, as my ancestors belong to the village called Kakrali in the district of Gujrat, in the state of Punjab now a part of Pakistan (earlier undivided India). The name Kakrali is derived from the word “Kikar” a member of the Acacia group of hardy trees which thrives in dry shrub lands of Punjab.
My family is from a Hindu sub caste called “Khatri”. This includes people with last names same as mine or others like Khanna, Kapoor, Malhotra, Mehra, Chopra, Sodhi, Sood etc. One of the very famous Bedi was Guru Nanak who start Sikhism centuries ago. Khatris claim to have originated as Kshatriyas (warrior caste – the number two in the traditional caste pecking order with the top one being brahmins) but somehow over the centuries they found better luck as traders and wound up dominating trade routes as part of the famous silk route in and out of the Indian subcontinent all the way up to Russia and beyond. So a reasonably wealthy class, now spread over a large part of north India.
I make myself comfortable on the red colored floor mat at this guy’s small room and he starts opening the “Bahi Khata” which contains my family’s history.
We start in reverse chronological order and read through an entry made by an uncle of mine in 1996 which had me and my brother’s names listed as well. The writing is mostly in Hindi but with almost no space between the words making it hard for me to read it but our guy is a pro and he quickly reads out the text to me and I am convinced that this really is my family as I also see my uncle and dad’s signatures.
We keep moving backwards in time. The records are still mostly in Hindi with a few in English & Urdu and one interestingly in the language used in financial record keeping called “Mahajani”, a part of the “Lande” family. My ancestors being traders must have used this language extensively for book keeping – and of course I can’t read it !
The geographical location of where my ancestors traveled from keeps changing as well. While the more recent ones are from the Delhi area where we settled, it moves into the Sikh holy city of Amritsar where we moved post the partition of India in 1947, then it moves into the village of Kakrali where we originate from.
We continue flipping through history. 1916 – Lala Hirachand (my great-great-great grandfather), 1879 – Dana Mal and finally 1818 – Sabla Mal. And that’s where I find a mention in the records that our family originated from a nephew of Guru Nanak (who started Sikhism and died in 1539) called Tipru. Wow !! We cannot find records prior to this which may also be due to the fact that palm leaves used (instead of paper) then did not have much of an archival life. Or maybe they are hidden amidst the millions of records in these rooms.
As I am busy clicking pictures of these treasured pages, I am educated that there are about 2500 of such “pandas” in Haridwar but their tribe is rapidly diminishing as the younger generation does not find this exciting or lucrative enough as a career. Also, due to lack of any institutional support to preserve, these valuable records are also succumbing to the forces of nature. The real talent of these people is their ability to memorize these records passed to them from their forefathers and be able to search across millions of these in a matter of minutes without the help of any technology. No wonder he was able to place me so quickly.
Anyway, I google the name Kakrali and surprisingly the village still exists close to the town of Gujrat in Pakistan. Someone even has a nice YouTube video of the place but looking at the geo-politics between India and Pakistan, I doubt if I will ever be able to visit Kakrali.
I pay some money to this guy for his efforts and walk back into the crowded street but with a smile on my face and a feeling of greater belonging in my heart. Maybe someday I will visit Kakrali and get some glimpses of the world that my family came from.
In case I have intrigued you enough and you too are enthused to trace your roots, write to me and I might be able to help guide your journey: rahul@bedi.co.in