The place of my ancestors Kerala is where my roots run deepest, and it is the place I have lived the least. Meet any Syrian Christian from Kerala of my generation and they will usually ask you three questions. Where in Kerala are you from? What is your family name, your kudumbam, as we say in Malayalam? And which church do you belong to? They do not mean the building so much as the particular branch of the Syrian Christian faith. I was born into an old Syrian Christian family, the kind that can trace its history back through many generations. Some of that history is written down. Some has…