Holland to Mainpuri – in search of family roots
While it was business as usual in Mainpuri on Monday, a 55- year-old woman of Indian origin was here from The Netherlands to fulfill her father’s last wish – to trace her family’s roots in this small town of Uttar Pradesh.
Shanta Ram Ratan had only one clue – that her father, then aged 9, was deported along with his mother to Surinam by the British 105 years ago.
“Since 1984, I have been here twice in the past and this is my third attempt to trace my roots in Mainpuri. And certainly it won’t be the last. I will find them sooner or later,”saidShantawhowas on her way back to Delhi, from where she would fly back to Holland on March 10.
She, along with her friend Seema Kiran from Jammu, visited the residence of ‘sarvarakar’ (custodian) of late Raja Tej Singh of Mainpuri (who ruled in the beginning of 20th century) to search for records but could not find anything substantial.
Sharing what her father Shyam Sundar Ram Ratan had told her in Holland before passing away in 1976, Shanta said: “My father had wished that I should travel to Mainpuri and look for my family and relatives in Mainpuri – the city he (father) had to leave at the age of nine in 1912,” she stated.
“My grandmother Suraj Kali and my father had to leave Mainpuri on April, 3 1912. The British regime took them to Kolkata on the pretext of a trip to Shri Ram Temple – from where both along with others were deported (by ship) to Surinam where they were engaged as bonded labourers in a sugarcane farm,”saidShanta.
“My grandmother was 25 when she reached Surinam on May 14, 1912,” said Shanta who didn’t know whether her grandmother lost her husband or he was with her while leaving Mainpuri.
As such the woman is unaware about her caste, surname, address in Mainpuri but knows that her father Shyam Sundar Ram Ratan shifted to Holland from Surinam. Shanta moved around Mainpuri and interacted with several people, telling them that her grandmother was from Rangoon (Myanmar) and was married to a resident of Mainpuri.
She had also gone to the British Embassy in Surinam in 1984 to have a look at the records of those deported there by the British.
“From there, I got an address – that of Chappatti mohalla in Kotwali area of Mainpuri and this clue brings me to Mainpuri,” added Shanta.