Journey From a Child’s Question to An Unsung Hero

How The Journey Unfolded

Sometimes, the most extraordinary journeys begin with the simplest of questions.

More than two decades ago, when our two sons were young, we would take them back to our parents living in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, for their summer holidays. Like many children growing up abroad, they knew their grandparents as their Ammuma and Appuppa. But in addition to meeting their own grandparents, we would also take them to meet our large extended family members — uncles, aunts, cousins, and elders — and the introductions would invariably go:

One day, our older son finally asked: “But how many Appuppas and Ammumas do I have? And how exactly are they related to me?”

That innocent question started everything.

From a Dining Table Scrap piece of paper

In the early 2000s, while both sets of our parents were visiting us in New Jersey, news arrived of a demise in the family back in India. As the elders sat around our dining table discussing relatives and relationships, our son once again wanted to understand who everyone was and how we were connected.

That was when Ramesh's father picked up a scrap piece of paper from the dining table and began drawing a family chart.

One name led to another. One scrap piece of paper became several sheets of paper, and before long, over a period of several months, it turned into hundreds of papers carrying names and connecting lines that were spread across the walls of our dining room.

We tried genealogy software, graphic designers, and even artists, but our large and intricately connected Kerala family chart proved difficult to represent. Eventually, as life became busy with raising our children and everyday responsibilities, the project was put aside.

But it never really left us.

This was the first drawing on a scrap piece of paper

Then that became a few papers long

Then the papers became longer and wider

Multiple sheets of paper were taped together to form one continuous sheet

Numerous sheets of paper, each bearing a different family tree, layered and folded one over another

A long architect's scroll multiple feet long.
Ramesh, Deeta, and Zimba rechecking all the entries.

Ten Generations & 500+ Members

Nearly twenty plus years later, during COVID, with all four of us home together again, we returned to that unfinished family tree. And, we were determined to complete it.

We began calling relatives across the world, verifying names, filling gaps, and tracing branch after branch. What had begun as a simple exercise to explain family relationships to our children eventually became a meticulously researched ten-generation family tree.

With the help of our niece Malavika, an architect, and Lakshmi from her team, and with Ramesh closely guiding its visual design, the enormous chart was recreated using architectural software. Ramesh was insistent that the lines connecting the members were clearly represented so that a reader could actually follow a family member through all ten generations, and that the integrity of the generational representation not be lost across the 500+ members that we tracked.

And then we asked ourselves: why create something this extensive if it could not be shared?

That question led to the creation of our family-tree coffee-table book, a high-grade production that can last for generations. On October 1, 2023, the book was formally released during a worldwide family gathering on Zoom, attended by more than 150 family members from across five continents. The project that had begun on a dining-table scrap piece of paper more than twenty years earlier was finally complete.

Or so we thought.

From a simple question to a remarkable journey of family history, research and discovery.

1849 — 2023 The Heirs of Attukal Govinda Pillai

One Journey Led to Another

From a question
to a documentary.

A Question

“How are they related to me?”

A scrap piece of paper

The first family chart.

A Family tree project

Ten generations and 500+ members.

A Coffee table book

A record created to last generations.

A Documentary

An Unsung Hero.

Uncovering History

Once the book was finished, our curiosity shifted from “Who belongs where?” to a far more compelling question:

“Who were these people?”

That question opened an entirely new world. As we began researching the lives behind the names, stories emerged of remarkable ancestors whose lives intersected with important periods, personalities, places, and institutions in Indian history.

At the beginning of that history stood one Pandit Sankarnath Jyotsar.

Following his story took us far beyond our own family history — from Kerala to Kanchipuram, Kashi and the Himalayas, to Badrinath, Kangra and Lahore, and eventually to Travancore. His extraordinary journey led us into the worlds of scholarship, spirituality, royal courts, diplomacy, law, and governance.

The more we discovered, the more we wondered: How had we never heard this story of our forefather before?

We realized that what we had uncovered deserved to be preserved not merely for our family, but for a much wider audience. And so, what was initially imagined as a small visual record gradually became a historical documentary: AN UNSUNG HERO – PANDIT SANKARNATH JYOTSAR.

Following The Names

The names
became lives

As we began researching the lives behind the names, stories emerged of remarkable ancestors whose lives intersected with important periods, personalities, places and institutions in Indian history.

Kerala

At the beginning of that history stood one Pandit Sankarnath Jyotsar.

Kanchipuram

Following his story took us far beyond our own family history.

Kashi

His extraordinary journey opened a world of scholarship and spirituality.

Himalayas

The trail continued through the Himalayas and to Badrinath.

Kot Kangra, Lahore, and The British East India Company

The story led into worlds of scholarship, spirituality, royal courts, diplomacy, law and governance.

Travancore

Eventually, the journey brought us back to Travancore.

01

THE BEGINNING

A child's innocent question

02

THE FIRST SKETCH

A sketch drawn on a scrap piece of paper sitting at a dining table

03

THE RESEARCH

Hundreds of pages spanning the dining room walls

04

THE FAMILY TREE

A 10-generation family tree scroll with over 500 members globally

05

THE BOOK

A high-grade family tree coffee-table book

06

THE DISCOVERY

A historical research journey across India

07

THE DOCUMENTARY

An Unsung Hero documentary film