Roots...!!!
"The farthest-back person they ever talked about was a man they called the African." - Alex Haley (Roots)
"Roots" by Alex Haley: A story of 7 generations from over 2 centuries.
Over the past century man has proved and is still continuously proving that there is no limit that it cannot prove. The book is an example of one of those limits to which one can go to know his roots and and his existence about which he has only heard from his mother and grandmother just as any other story.
He searched for nearly 12 years of his life looking for the person whom he has heard as his great-great-great-great-grandfather, whose name was "Kin-tey" and who was supposedly from somewhere in African where there was some river named "Kamby Bolong". Using this information and few other basic information of few words to look for, which he knew belonged to his ancestor's mother tongue, he started the journey of searching the KINTE CLAN. Without any internet, without any google, without any other technology which could have help him, he started and searched for hundreds of manually written records and traveled almost half a million miles in these 12 years.
The book perfectly displays the condition of Black Americans back till 1800's. No matter how perfect it looked now, the truth is something very bitter and after reading it, one might feel the situation was way worse than anyone could imagine.
I'd say that its a book that is worth reading. Not because its a story of Black Americans. Not because its a story of someone's ancestors. Its just because its a story from someone who gave so much efforts about searching his ROOTS, which normally none of us, apart from few, has bothered till now to even ask our parents - forget about asking the life of grandparents or great-great-great-great-grandparents - that what all they have struggled through to reach a stage from where they have been able to educate and brought us up to what we are today.
PS: You'll definitely have a smile on your face when after reading such a long saga by Alex Haley, you'll be nearing the end and when he says, "The baby boy, six weeks old, was me".
:) Thanks for sharing about it.. It has jumped in to my to read list..
ReplyDeleteglad to hear it...!!!
Deletewow...nice post
ReplyDeletethnx for sharing...well said
my recent one :http://www.cosmochics.com/reviews/lakme-9-to-5-matte-lip-color-in-scarlet-drill-review-swatches/
u r welcome :)
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