so I will skip writing about my obsessions. I feel like a voyeur, reading everyone else's, but not really divulging mine.  I must say, what's different about my need to to bring justice to my ancestral past is that with the finishing of my trilogy, I am done.  I will relieve myself of the burden and obsession of righting the past.  My ancestral ghosts are appeased, my parents are happy.  Now I live for Belle.

Who am I? Who were my forefathers? How and when did my great, great,  grandfather, our forefathers acquire the family name being used now? What was the family name centuries, many centuries ago? Were we Hindus, Muslims or Christians? Were we the subjects? Were we the displaced rulers? Were we the rulers? Were we the masters or were we the servants? These and many other questions keep cropping up. In the absence of a family tree or access to historical records, these questions really can't be answered.

My second novel, "Revenge of the Naked Princess," is a story on the dark age of forced religious conversions in India in the 16th century. Though based on research, it's obviously a fictitious account, peppered with paranormal elements. But who knows, the book may have come from the subconscious recesses of my mind.

It is people like you,steve,Catherine,oswald and many others that heighten the quality of writing and ideas on RR.
Thanks for sharing.

any of descendents from the East would call you a blank-blank anything. I find it disturbing when China goes back to the Opium Wars of nearly 200 years past and blame it on the living--it's a form of rabble rousing and ugly Nationalism when the gov. cannot give what the people really want: voice! I love knowing who my ancestors are. My being able to to to back 8 generations is my father's gift to me. I know my great grandfather's environment. I know the Japanese and the Chinese Communists were social forces that expelled my family from the land they worked hard to acquire. If you know the past, you know how you've become who you are today. I know just how I became an American if I follow the thread of upheaval in history. When I visit schools, I urge the children to start asking questions of their parents and grandparents, before the stories disappear.

The blood that runs in a family is a strange thing.

I moved away from where I was born when I was eight. I returned 20 years later with my husband and son because I wanted to reconnect with my family and I wanted my son to know from where I came.

Reuniting with aunts, uncles, and cousins I'd not seen in years was interesting. It was as if no time had passed. I have very affectionate relatives on both my mother and father's side.

My husband and son could immediately see the family connection in mannerisms, voice, and behavior. There were even connections in our view on matters though I'd not been raised around my people.

~ JoElle

www.dreamersforest.com