In the year 2000, I completed MA. My dissertation was based on Alex Haley’s Roots. Why did I select this book for my research? Maybe it was the movie Amistad I had seen which was released in the year 1997. The movie chronicles the life of slaves in a slave ship. Maybe it is because of the frequent visits to the USIS Library and watching the Friday movie screenings which also included the movie ‘Driving Miss Daisy’. USIS also celebrated the African American History Month every year in the month of October. The narrative structure of Roots is similar to the novel I am reading right now - Manushyanu Oru Aamukham (A Preface to Man) - The description is given after the title can be applied to both the novels - The Saga of (an American/Malayali) Family. Roots is also a novel which easily falls into the description used by Dr E.V Fatima to label Manushyanu Oru Aamukham. She described the classic by Subash Chandran as ‘a cultural mnemonic work’. Roots can also be described as a ‘racial mnemonic work’. It is a reminder of the past. Like Sherman Alexie’s works about Native Indians, Alex Haley is creating a ‘memory window’ for the African Americans. He invites the readers especially the young African Americans to look through the window and see their glorious past as a dream first and then as a collective nightmare. The memories of pain and humiliation are brought back. What the Americans forgot - ‘the racial injustice amnesia’ was remembered through this book. 44 years after the publication of this book, the African Americans are living in a world where new digital memories are still haunting them. The statues and busts of slave owners including Thomas Jefferson were destroyed to remove bad memories. The hashtag #blacklivesmatter gained momentum and its ripples were seen in as far as Australia. Kneeling on one knee became a way to protest and it reminded the world about the ideas of equality and brotherhood. Lest we Forget - Alex Haley who was born today.
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