All the what ifs

It's quite interesting, preparing for the kind of trip I am going to take.
Not so much in terms of what I am going to bring to wear etc, but what to expect, and how far will be expectations exceed reality or vice versa.

I think about my one contact who is the only link to family (if that). How does he feel about this so called relative who is going to impose upon his time, his home and his family, to do something as innocuous as search for things he has known all his life?

I think about my friend, Hameed, who is producing this show, and the huge chance he has taken on my one link. If the link leads to a dead end, will we just make stuff up along the way? Will the "magic" of television be enough to fill in the gaps in my travel story?

My dad told me that my great grandfather gave up his comforts, his land and all that he knew to stow away on one of the merchant ships heading towards the Malayan Peninsula. This must have been circa 1880. A few questions have been in my head since then:-

1) Why did he leave? A sense of adventure? Some kind of trouble? Did he get some shy young temple dancer pregnant and had to run away from her father and his large machete? Or was it something more noble, like new business opportunities?

2) Indian merchant ships were going everywhere from England to South Africa back then. Why did he pick one headed to Malaya? I could have been a British or South African citizen now if he had picked a different boat.

3) What if, once landing, he decided to pick a local Malay girl as a bride? Indian girls must have been few and far between back then. I might have been Indian Muslim if he had made THAT choice.

4) What if he made his fortune and decided to move back to Sirkazhi instead of stay in Malaya? Would I have been a MSc from IIT instead of a BA from QUT? Or would I have given up education to marry a gentle Indian agricultural officer (farmer) and live out my days in quiet oblivion?

More questions than answers as this point. But it's humbling to think about how different my life would have been if not for my pioneering, adventurous great-grandfather.