Ahmedabad, June 11 -- For many young people in Mauritius, India is a place they have heard about in family stories but never seen. The names of ancestral villages in states like Bihar and Tamil Nadu have faded over generations, family records have been lost, and what remains are fragments of a journey that began more than a century ago when their forebears crossed the Indian Ocean in search of a new life.

This week, however, the first-ever World Yogasana Championships in Ahmedabad became an unlikely bridge between those distant memories and a new generation eager to understand where they came from.

Among those making the journey were Mauritian athletes Chethnaa Reesaul, Parineeti Kalkah and Ganisha Bajah, all of whom trace their roots t...