KOCHI: Gopal Nair, a 70-year-old Australian citizen, is on a mission to find his family roots in Kerala.
For all these years, his Kerala connection remained only in his surname and the faint memories of his father that his Fiji-born mother, member of a Malayali family settled early in the South Pacific Ocean island, told him when he was very young.
“It was during a trip to Kerala in 2017 that I decided to find my roots. It was a special feeling when I touched down the ground from the flight. I could feel the call of my forefathers who belonged to this land where my father was born and raised. It was bliss and highly emotive,” said Gopal, who was also born in Fiji.
Gopal said he will be back again in Kerala to trace his family links. “I will continue with my effort to find my father’s family members,” said Gopal, who has been living in Australia for the past 40 years.Gopal was very young when his father died and from what his mother had told him, Gopal could surmise that his father was in his teens when he arrived in Fiji some time between 1903 and 1916.
“I have gone through all the records of South Indians who arrived in Fiji, now archived at the National Library of Australia in Canberra. It is possible that my dad was a free settler. As he had run away from home, it’s also possible that he would have lied about his age or other details recorded on the Emigration Pass, document issued from a port in India to those who board steamers to Fiji.
“We also know that he was born in Malabar for sure. In Fiji, he lived in Raki Raki, and was a successful businessman and the proprietor of a transport firm. He spoke Malayalam, was educated and used to send money to his family back home,” Gopal told TNIE over phone from Sydney.
“He died in 1954. There must be some history of his life with his family in India. We were very young and could not read or write Malayalam which contributed to severing of the links. I also learnt lately from my elder brother’s birth certificate that our dad was 48-year-old in 1943, which means he must have been born in 1895. The same document confirms that his father’s name was Kunjunni Nair. But my father also used to write his name as Ram Narain Nair Kunjunni or Kunjunni Raman Narayan Nair, which is still a mystery,” he said adding he used to get tiny bits of information about his father from his mother, who died in 1996.