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I see the signs of creeping tourism even in my old neighborhood of Fort Cochin, a quiet, leafy enclave with stately mansions and grassy football fields. It's still leafy enough, and local laws have saved the mansions from real-estate developers, but all too many of the old houses have been converted into hotels and tourist lodges. There are also more shops selling antiques than I remember. The area around the Chinese nets has been paved, all the better for tourist photographers to place their tripods.
After travelers have exhausted their film and are herded onto their air-conditioned buses, they are driven to Cochin's second most famous landmark: the synagogue, set amid the blue-shuttered pepper warehouses in the neighborhood known as Jew Town. There, on the synagogue's floor, may be another clue to Zheng He's visits: Guangzhou-made porcelain tiles, several centuries old. The synagogue is the legacy of a Jewish presence in Kerala dating back to A.D. 70. But it's not much to look at, just an ordinary house on an ordinary street. Built in 1568, it now caters to a few score local Jews and thousands of tourists. The narrow lane leading to the synagogue is full of shops selling dubious antiques and cheap handicrafts. Inside, the main hall is awash in gaudy colors, far too much gold paint and more chandeliers than any ceiling should be expected to bear. It seems less a place of worship than a curiosity, and the resident "guide" seems principally interested in selling postcards. One of these is a picture of the tiles, which it says were donated to the synagogue by a rich Jewish trader and laid in 1762.
In a bookshop near my old home, I find an obscure monograph on the history of Cochin that provides more clues to the tiles. The author suggests they were presented to the Cochin Raja by the Chinese traders who were accompanied by Ma Huan, the treasure ship's chronicler, and an unnamed ambassador (probably Zheng He). The tiles, he claims, were meant for the Raja's palace, but some clever Jewish merchants spread the rumor that Chinese use cow's blood to make porcelain and the King, a devout Hindu, had to give them up — to the Jewish merchants.
Before leaving Cochin, I return again to the Chinese nets. I read that old plaque. The nets were brought to Kerala between 1350 and 1450. I watch eight men lower one of the nets — a giant wood-ribbed umbrella, suspended from a 30-m wooden spine by a complex system of ropes and stone counterweights — into the water, hold it there for a minute, then haul it out by pulling the ropes like some ancient tug-of-war with the backwaters. The men win, but the prize is paltry: a few eels and some nondescript fish, no more than 15 kg in all. But the fishermen seem happy enough. They break for a smoke. I ask one of them, Maran, if he knows why the nets are called Chinese. "They came from China," Maran replies. Does he know when? "Long time ago, before my grandfather's time." Would he care to guess how many years ago? "Maybe 200, maybe more."
I still remember the collective groan that went up in the locker room when coach D'Souza said we would be traveling to Calicut for a football game. That was in 1982, and for us big-city sophisticates in Cochin, Calicut was a one-horse town in the middle of nowhere. Even I, who had never been there, knew the place was a crushing bore: no ice-cream parlors (the preferred hangouts of early-80s Indian teens), no good record stores and — this was the killer — no girls' schools famous for beauteous babes. We moaned about it the entire five-hour bus ride to Calicut and spent much of the return trip making derisive comments about the place. I have no recollection of the match itself. But I know the town lived up to its reputation.
Now, as I get off the plane, I'm in a much more respectful frame of mind. Calicut, after all, was the objective of the admiral's great voyages; this was Ma Huan's "great country of the Western Ocean." The principal city of the magical Malabar coast, it was a necessary port of call for traders and adventurers alike. Marco Polo visited Calicut on his way back home from Kublai Khan's China. The Chinese didn't just stop here, they built homes and warehouses. But driving in from the airport, I can't see a single building that might be more than 100 years old. Half a history? Modern Calicut seems to have no history at all.
Still, my first interview gets off to a promising start. Raghava Varrier, a professor and local historian, seems more knowledgeable about Chinese trade. And not just Chinese. "Traders came from everywhere," he says. "This was Asia's most important entrepot." It was the closest thing to a free port in the medieval world: the local rulers, known as Zamorins, charged 6-10% import duty on all items. They provided traders with guest houses and servants — and the odd courtesan, natch — and guaranteed the security of all goods. Varrier encourages me to think of it as a 15th century Hong Kong, complete with its own seamy Wanchai district.
Varrier takes me to Silk Street, which was the Chinese quarter in Zheng He's day. But he warns me against getting my hopes too high: "There's nothing Chinese about it now." He's right. Silk Street is a narrow lane, not far from the beach, and none of the bungalows shows signs of antiquity. Where the Chinese once built a fortified warehouse and quarters for high-ranking traders — including, presumably, the admiral — now stands an Islamic school. Zheng He, a Muslim, might have approved. Next, we make our way to the center of town, the site of the former palace, once surrounded by huge gardens, temples and lakes. These days there's a modern multi-storied building that houses the state-owned life insurance company, and a pretty little park where children play under the watchful eyes of their amahs. "If you want to see the Calicut of the Zamorins," the professor says. "I'm afraid you have to rely entirely on your imagination."