Roots, a book by Alex Haley

After a real long time, a book disturbed my sleep, a character denied to be forgotten even for a while and I spent quite some time turning side. The imaginary cacophony of African tribe didn’t let my consciousness drowse. The drums kept beating and “Kunta Kinte” kept me engaged. I felt sorry for him, my throat choked several times as his story unfolded. I saw him being dragged from his tribe in Ghana, in chains buried in his filth into the slavery. The images of his attempts to run back, the atrocities of whites, the trading of blacks like any other good, barring them from speaking their tongue, barring them from allowing them to inherit the name of their father, their children put to labor at an early age, their women raped. Throughout the book I detested that I am among those who grinded their fellow human being and I kept feeling sorry for the poor men. The small post card of Bob Marley glued in my closet kept singing ‘Buffalo soldier..’. How many times I sang his lines ‘Get up stand up, stand up for your right’ as Kunta Kinte fall prey to brutal atrocities. I had a tough time controlling my tears roll down when he caught the feet of his ‘Massa’ pledging him not to sell his beloved daughter. I was really torn down when his wife’s plea to not sell his daughter reminding him how much had she done to the deaf ‘Massa’. I just couldn’t continue reading and to console myself I had to switch on the TV. My heart wrenched when their 16 year old daughter Kizzy was raped the very first night she was bought by a new massa. The book told a history of a family of people who lived in America. I felt so sad as she told the story of his father ‘Kunta Kinte’, his tongue which became a tradition and every new born generation after generation told the same story to their ‘yunguns’ (young ones) until seven generation later Alex Haley, the author of the book thought about doing a research and wrote the book. I rejoiced when his great-great grand children were freed from slavery and how much respect I had for Abraham Lincoln for abolishing slavery. I understood why a black man had cried when Barrack Obama was elected the new president of the United States. The gaunt, black figure of Kunta Kinte revisited me throughout the day even when I was not reading the book. I admired him for having the courage to share the story of his homeland and his people to his child who set this up as a tradition. Just when one is playing a video game one gets so engaged in the game (racings) that when one has to swerve the graphical car in the screen he bends his entire body, I prayed for Kunte to succeed when he tried to escape. I respected him when other black mates of his called him ‘Toby’ the name given by his massa, and he yelled back at them that his name was ‘Kun-tay’. Probably that protest led his generation to come out with this heart wrenching book and as the book concludes ‘ history is written by winners’ the blacks have really won the battle to freedom and its their history and it has been written with pride.
While reading this book I remembered years back when I went to home of these two girls named Nizu and Rizu once we talked about family name. The former asked me why is family name so important, I had told them it gives one ancestral identity and about lineage. I wish I had read this book back then and had been able to tell them the true story of ‘Kunta Kinte’ of Gambia.
The next book that awaits me is ‘Hot, flat and Crowded’. I hope it leaves me equally fascinated.