After celebrating Radhashtami in India, I flew again to London in the beginning of September. The family with whom I had stayed in summer had invited me to celebrate nine days of religious activities, ceremonies and rituals with them.
They did this kind of program every year and invited people of the surrounding to come each day for three to four hours for these ceremonies. Everybody came together and we recited Mantras and scriptures, did some rituals and then had some food together, too. They were very happy to have me, a religious guru and Swami from India, there to lead through the ceremonies.
For me it was easy to be with this family. They were very nice and additionally they followed Hinduism and the old Indian traditions very exactly. I was used to Indian traditions and rituals and loved doing and performing them and in this time I enjoyed them with the flavor of London.
It is often like this in families of Indian origin living outside of India. They are more into old religious traditions than even many people in India. The forefathers of the family with whom I stayed had emigrated from India to Uganda when both were still British colonies. After Idi Amin seized power there in 1971, he expelled all Asians from the country and they fled to Britain.
I have the feeling that such families are carrying their roots around the world with them. In a foreign country they need to have the feeling that they still live like at home. It is part of their identity. Emigrants need the feeling of a connection to their home country and religion or traditions offer them this connection.
I feel that in this way some people often get stuck with their old traditions while in their home country the same traditions actually develop further. They, of course, get a touch of the lifestyle of the country they live in, too, and so old-fashioned traditions sometimes clashes with modern living and at other times is nicely combined into a mélange of cultures.
The children of such emigrants who were then born in England had learned Hindi mostly through Bollywood movies. They heard their parents speak Hindi but did not really learn the language. They understood 100% of what I said but spoke little Hindi and were not really comfortable in the language. In this way they could understand my lectures, which obviously were in Hindi.
One of the nine days was the 11th of September 2001. I do not remember anymore exactly which day of the nine days it was. After the ceremony of that day we got the news of the terror attacks in the USA. My host turned on the TV and we were watching in the news again and again how the planes struck the towers of the World Trade Center. Of course everybody was shocked and that day and the next we included the victims and their family members into our prayers.
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I appreciate your nice way of explaining the feelings of emigrants. Having a similar history of forefathers, I can understand how the Indian-rooted population of Great Britain feels towards their religion and traditions. It is important to know where you come from after all. You need to know your roots, and you carry them with you.
I know what you mean when you talk about getting stuck in the tradition. Here in Germany foreigners are often said to cling to their traditions such as the head-scarf much more than the people in their home country. I guess it is understandable that they don’t want to lose their culture.
It is really nice that you share your impressions of that time with us! Thank you Swami Ji!
Having roots in another country myself, I understand this need for something that makes your heart feel that you have not fully left your roots. You need this connection to your origin. You sometimes feel that you want to eat something that you ate as child, you feel like hearing your mother-tongue or listening to music of your country. I tend to bake sweets like my mother’s and listen to old folk songs whenever I get this kind of blues. I don’t have any religious connection to my roots, otherwise I would surely do something similar.