Krishna Hoober, a primary school teacher who teaches English, Mathematics and French in Mauritius, is in India to trace his roots.

Part of the huge Indian diaspora attending the three-day Pravasi Bharatiya Divas in Bhubaneswar, Krishna told The Telegraph: “To start with, we were known as Kuber in Mauritius and it later became Hoober. That’s the case with most of us in my country. With the passage of time, Kuber became Hoober. My ancestral village is in Uttar Pradesh. I will go to my village and offer my pranam to the soil and take back a handful of it with me back to Mauritius.”

A member of the Mauritian contingent at the PBD, Krishna, said: “I am delighted to be here. The ambience and atmosphere is quite good. I feel at home.”

Hoober recalled how on November 2, 1834, a batch of labourers went in a ship called Atlas to Mauritius. They were indentured labourers. They were mostly from Bengal, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.

Hoober, a bachelor, said: “All of them were engaged in the sugarcane fields as labourers. Over centuries, their families earned name and fame and contributed immensely to the socio-cultural and economic condition of Mauritius. They have even been elected to their municipalities and to the legislative forums.”

Anju Bhagat Purnima, another Mauritian delegate who teaches English and was elected to their Mauritian municipal council, recalled how her great-grandfather moved to Mauritius. “Things have changed. It’s our motherland. We are also connected emotionally to India.” She now divides her time between Canada and Mauritius.

She said her father’s ancestors came from Bihar and her mother traced her origins to Uttar Pradesh. “Not only me, thousands of people are now elected to various bodies in our country. All are contributing to nation building.”

She said former President of Mauritius Anerood Juganauth also traced his lineage to India.

Between 1834 and 1920, nearly 7,00,000 Indian indentured labourers arrived at Aapravasi Ghat, an embankment located in the harbour of Port-Louis. It thus became the British Colony and largest recipient of indentured migrants. Indian indentured labourers were mostly brought from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madras, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Calcutta and Puri from Odisha.