Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar's visit to her ancestral village in Bhelpur, India, helps us to refocus on the idea of our identity as Trinidadians.

It is fashionable to talk in the manner of the "Father of the Nation", Dr Eric Williams, that there must be no Mother Africa, no Mother India, only Mother Trinidad. This has merit in a sense but only up to a point, for to take such a tenet in its absolute sense is to sever an ancestral linkage which has shaped us, and this, to my mind, is somewhat untenable.

Even as I have my independence within the framework of my immediate family, I will never want to disconnect with my parents or grandparents, for they are the original source. In essence, they will have helped to make me, even as I am, what I am, with my own independent and unique personal integrity.

This country is all the more rich because many of East Indian descent are still able to maintain that link with the region of India from where their forefathers came, in their dress, in their worship, in their food and in their values.

In this respect, I would like to ignore the underlying cynicism and tit-for-tat political response to the PM's visit to India by one T Thomas, in a letter to the editor entitled "Fly us to Africa", and to applaud him/her at face value for the suggestion that "there are so many Afro-Trinidadians who want to return to their roots". It is the kind of cultural linkage that should be encouraged.

Our "Trinidadianess", even as we allow for the natural cultural fusion that is inevitable in a diverse society such as ours, should involve less of that traditional sense of a "melting pot" of erased individual cultural identities as an end itself and more a composite of the different cultural formations which we are historically each proud of in its individual uniqueness. But it should be respectful of and never seeking to dominate the other, as much as the colours of the rainbow are clearly identifiable from each other, one never seeking to supersede the other but each integral to the richness of the beautiful collective of which it is.

So Kamla's visit to India gives us an opportunity to rethink what it is to be truly Trinidadian, and I look forward to T Thomas's suggestion about taking root among our African brothers and sisters.

Dr Errol Benjamin

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