Kochi :

During the time when the Yuan dynasty was ruling China, a Malayali family from Kozhikode crossed the seas and settled in the Land of the Red Dragon. Over 700 years later another Malayali, Joe Thomas Karackattu, who was doing research on the Indo-China relations during the pre-colonial times and the historical and cultural exchanges that took place at the time, stumbled upon this story. He decided to trace the descendants of this family. ‘Guli’s Children’, a documentary written, shot and edited by Joe Thomas, tells the story of this search. The film was premiered at a function held at Malabar Christian College in Kozhikode on Wednesday.

Thomas, an assistant professor at IIT Madras, was trying to bring out the cultural and historical linkages by locating physical artefacts that connect Kerala with China. “It was during the research on the subject that I came across accounts of this family that moved from Calicut to China during the Yuan dynasty, which got me intrigued. So, along with the physical artefacts that show the Chinese connection, I decided to a search for this family,” he said. Guli in Chinese refers to Calicut and hence the title Guli’s Children.

“Several people had varying accounts on where they were based. So the real challenge was to locate them. The research took me nearly 20,000 kilometres across India and China–from the east to the north to the south of China. The story would be told through an academic paper as well, but the visual dimension to such a search gave me the motivation to capture it on film in the first instance,” said Thomas.

“The thrill of meeting the descendants of a Malayali who had moved to China over 700 years ago was incomparable. I hope that the documentary will open up the way we look at Indo-Chinese relations,”he added. “Cultural interaction with Southern India and China, peaked between the 12th and 15th century. There are historical accounts that refer to connections with Kerala, chiefly Calicut, Cochin and Quilon in Chinese works like Yingyai Shenglan by Ma Huan, Xingcha Shenglan by Fei Xin and Ming Shilu,” he said. “I feel we are stuck in a time-warp or a paradigm warp, when it comes to looking at China. That paradigmatic optic needs to change.”
Thomas, who was born and brought up in Delhi, studied at St Stephen’s College and JNU and was a Fox Fellow at Yale University.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News Home> City> Kochi / by Rochelle Dsouza / TNN / April 21st, 2016