Who Do You Think You Are?BBC, "Meera's parents both originate from the farmlands of the Punjab, in north-west India. Her father, Surendra Syal, hails from a small village called Lasara. In India, it is difficult to trace your ancestry through documents like birth certificates, in the way that you can in the United Kingdom, but instead Indian family records are kept at shrines in the country's many holy cities. It is in the ancient city of Haridwar, on the riverbanks of the Ganges, that a Hindu priest is responsible for preserving the genealogy of the Syals, in a book called a Bah. It was in this book that Meera found that the Syals have been living in Lasara for the past 250 years."
books.google.com
Brahman pandasDivine Enterprise: Gurus and the Hindu Nationalist Movement, by Lise McKean, University of Chicago Press, 1996. ISBN0-226-56010-4. Page 151.
The Greatest Mela on Earth, the Kumbh at HaridwarRediff.com, "Tiny temples, hardly larger than phone booths, dot every 100 metres of the ghats. As do the umbrella-shaded stalls, standing on stilts, of the pandas, who apart from conducting religious ceremonies can track down the genealogy of Hindu families from their centuries-old, long, yellowing registers. Little ceremonies -- blessing of coconuts, offering of flowers, money and sweets, lighting of the oil lamps -- take place along every inch of the ghats and probably have for aeons. Pandas, alms seekers, pandits and hawkers are posted every few yards ready to shake out a few coins or notes from every newcomer they spot. Can I trace your family tree or offer you advice?"
