Roots to Routes: a family’s journey across continents

Every summer, South Asian Heritage Month invites us to reflect on our origins, tracing the journeys that shaped who we are today. For me, the theme “Roots to Routes” is more than a phrase — it’s a living chronicle of my family’s migration across continents, standing as testament to resilience, adaptation and hope.

My story begins long before I took my first breath in the UK, with roots anchored in the fields of Gujarat, India. My paternal grandfather grew up in Kalanpur, a small, sun-baked village where he was the eldest of eight children in a struggling farming family. When my great-grandfather’s health failed, the responsibility to secure the family’s future fell on my grandfather’s young shoulders. At just 16, he made the courageous decision to leave everything familiar behind, boarding a ship alone for Uganda in search of better prospects under the shadow of British colonial rule.

Both paternal and maternal family, Mbarara Uganda

The ties between India and Uganda were forged in the late 19th century when the British Empire, seeking to build a railway connecting Kenya to Lake Victoria, brought thousands of Indian labourers to East Africa. The journey was perilous; many lost their lives, some even falling victim to lions as they camped along the tracks. Upon the railway’s completion, a wave of Gujaratis and Punjabis remained with others following, lured by the promise of economic opportunity and relative freedom under British supervision. My grandfather was among those early settlers, followed later by his wife (my grandmother) and his brother. Together, they built small businesses and began raising a family.

Their hard work bore fruit in Uganda, but the pull of home never faded. In 1950, my grandfather gathered his family (including my father, the youngest son) and returned temporarily to India. But the lack of opportunity in Gujarat soon drove them back to Uganda, where my uncle, determined to become a doctor, stayed behind in India and later moved to Germany to pursue his studies, funded in part by the family’s businesses.

But history, as ever, was about to intervene. The winds of Ugandan independence from Britain were gathering strength, and with them, the position of Asians in the country grew uncertain. In 1958-59, economic boycotts against Asian-owned businesses in Masaka forced my family to uproot once more, moving to Mbarara, where they found kin and community. Here, my parents met and married in 1961, only a year before Uganda officially gained independence.

Post-independence, the climate for Asian business owners worsened. Trading licenses became contingent on surrendering British passports for Ugandan ones, a seemingly bureaucratic act with devastating consequences. My father, ever enterprising, tried to build a business in Goma with my maternal uncle, but a robbery at gunpoint left them with nothing, plunging the family into hardship. Meanwhile, my grandfather’s brother returned to India with his family, only to find themselves alienated and impoverished in the land they once called home.

Family wedding in Kigali, 1969 (me in orange dress)

In 1964, my father chose a different path; he left Uganda for Rwanda, moving first to Ruhengeri and then Kigali, with some of my maternal relatives following. Their lives remained precarious, ever at the mercy of shifting political tides. The 1971 military coup in Uganda, led by Idi Amin, brought fresh terror; in 1972, Amin ordered the expulsion of all Asians from Uganda within 90 days. While my immediate family was safe in Rwanda, those still in Uganda faced chaos, looting, and violence.  Many Asians were killed indiscriminately and women were taken, raped and killed.

Many of my family fled with little more than £50 and a suitcase (the maximum permitted by the Ugandan government), spending months in temporary camps in the UK before slowly rebuilding their lives from scratch through hard work and perseverance back to prosperity.

My father, seeking stability and education for his children, followed his elder sister to Leicester in 1971, against the warnings of both the British press and adverts placed by Leicester City Council in Ugandan press telling Asians not to come to Leicester. He wanted a future for his family that was free from fear and rich in opportunity, inspired by the success of his brother, who had become a surgeon in Germany.

Ancestral house in Kalanpur taken in 2009

Looking back, I am deeply grateful for the risks my parents and grandparents took in migrating across continents, starting over time and again, facing loss and adversity with unyielding courage. When I visited our ancestral village in India in 2009, the stark differences in amenities and living standards reminded me how much my family sacrificed to give me a better future. Though I love India, it has never truly felt like home; my sense of belonging is firmly rooted in the country where I grew up.

Yet, our family’s heritage endures. We speak Gujarati at home, sprinkled with Swahili and English. We celebrate our culture, cuisine, and Hindu faith, and pass down the spirit of resilience that enabled earlier generations to survive and thrive. In their stories, they saw not victimhood but determination; the question of “What now?” propelling them forward rather than dwelling on their plights.

As I watch the next generation, my niece and nephew (both of mixed Indian and Western heritage), I wonder how the tides of technology and global change will shape their identities. One thing is certain: they have been given deep roots, and the freedom to chart their own routes, just as their ancestors did before them. Our story, like so many others, is proof that heritage is both a gift and a journey, connecting us to the past even as we forge new paths for the future.