From Jhelum to Tana

Beyond The Limits Of Geography, Where Space And Time Know No Barriers, Our Identities Are Cast. Our Individual Histories Shape Us. Are We Indian? Kenyan-Indian? South Asian-African? Or Just Kenyan? In 1898, Young Kirparam Boards A Dhow In Karachi And Heads For The Shores Of Africa. He Knows Only That Workers Are Needed For A Railway Line Being Constructed There By The British. He Survives A Storm At Sea, Marauding Lions And The Plague To Become One Of The Famous Dukawallas Who Were Integral To Nairobi S Growth. Displaying Rare Courage, The Wife He Abandoned In India Also Sails Across The Indian Ocean With Her Six-Year-Old Child To Reclaim Her Husband. Reunited, They Go On To Have More Children, Presiding Over A Trading Empire That Provides Employment And Prosperity To The Second Generation Amid The Upheavals Of The Second World War, Racial Segregation, The End Of Colonialism--And The Magic Of Cinema. The Third Generation Ventures Out To Newer Continents Europe, North America, Australia--For Higher Studies, And Takes Up New Vocations, Even New Faiths. Kirparam S Great-Granddaughter Neera Knows Nothing Of His Fascinating Story Until, At The Age Of Forty-Two, She Sees His Portrait At A Relative S House. Her Curiosity Triggered By This Picture, She Sets Out To Uncover The Tale Of Her Ancestors, Bit By Bit--By Probing Personal Histories, During Trips To India And Pakistan, And By Sifting Through Archives. Soaked In Nostalgia For A Bygone Era, This Remarkable Tale Recounts A Punjabi Family S Adaptation To A New Nation And New Ways Of Seeing The World. In Many Ways, It Illustrates How Migration Shaped Multi-Cultural Societies In The Twentieth Century, Creating Today S Globalized World.