I would like to present here some thoughts about the fundamentals of the Romani identity and also about the group identity, in general. I begin with an inquiry about what happened with our ancestors when they left the Indian Subcontinent (since a closer look on the Romanipen and on the contemporary knowledge about the Desi of those times shows that something happened in that moment). The Dharmic-specific relative purity rules, dealing with the relations between castes, stepped back or were temporarily replaced (if our ancestors came from more local castes) by a set of absolute purity rules regarding the correct behavior of the Romani people and their relation with the others. Later, when the Romani population grew in number in certain regions, the relative purity rules reappeared (confined only among Roma) as a result of the emergence of the Romani castes. They started to be used together with the absolute purity rules. The latter define what is Romani and what is not Romani, presenting the identity as something global, while the former define the role of a Romani group as a specialized part of a complex society. The latter define who are the Roma, while the former define what do groups of Roma, what is special about them.