My younger one travelled to Nuremberg, Germany, last year to represent her institution at a prestigious moot court competition. Standing before delegates from across the world in the imposing hall where the infamous Nuremberg Trials were held after World War II was, understandably, an overwhelming experience. Yet, the memory she cherishes most—and the one she brought home to us—is far more intimate and unexpected.
The organisers had arranged a B&B for the participants’ stay. After an afternoon of intense deliberations, the team decided to unwind over pizza at a small pizzeria across the street. As they sat chatting and eating, the owner approached them hesitantly and asked if they were from India. They nodded in unison. He then went on to ask each of them their names and hometowns. When my daughter mentioned she was from Ambala, his expression transformed instantly—he was from Ambala too.
What followed was a heartwarming gesture of connection across continents. Refusing to accept payment for their meal, he insisted it was his way of honouring a fellow Ambala resident. He also handed them a large pizza to take back. In a distant land, amid unfamiliar faces, they had stumbled upon something—roots.
Human beings, much like plants, sink quiet roots into the soil that raises them. Plants cannot walk away, yet even when uprooted and carried afar, they seem to remember—holding, somewhere within, the echo of the earth they once knew. We, though gifted with movement, are no different. We draw an invisible sustenance from the places that shape us, from the language, the air, the unspoken rhythms of home.
And then, in a foreign land, it takes only the faintest trace, a familiar name, an accent, a shared memory, for that buried root to stir. A stranger, carrying the whiff of home, can suddenly collapse distances, returning us, if only for a fleeting moment, to the place where we belong.
A family wedding took me to the United States a few months ago—complete with the usual choreography of pre-wedding mingling, polite smiles, and the inevitable “So, where are you from?” At one such gathering, a casual introduction to a guest took an unexpectedly nostalgic turn. Upon hearing that I was from Ambala, she lit up as if someone had switched on a memory bulb.
“Oh, Ambala!” she exclaimed, almost with proprietary affection. It turned out that her maternal grandparents had lived there, and as a child, she had been a regular visitor. What followed was less a conversation and more a time-travel sequence. Within minutes, she was strolling down the lanes and bazaars of Ambala with her Nanaji, vividly recalling their culinary expeditions—papadi chaat, saat paani ke golgappe, and generous glasses of milk badam.
The sparkle in her eyes and the musical lilt in her voice said far more than her words ever could. It was as if Ambala, quite unceremoniously, had gate-crashed an American wedding and claimed the centre stage.
Call it nostalgia or the call of the roots, it is a force that works quietly yet persistently within us. Roots, after all, are not merely about geography; they are about memory, identity, and the quiet reassurance that while life may carry us across continents and cultures, a part of us remains anchored to the soil that first shaped our being.
Dr Sonika Sethi
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