About 240 years ago, a Chinese merchant called Yong Atchew settled in India. With 650 bighas of land handed over to him by Warren Hastings, the then Governor General of India, he started a sugar mill 40 kms from Calcutta. Regarded by the Indian Chinese — Indians of Chinese ancestry — as their first ancestor, Atchew's story is likely also the story of how "cheeni" came to be known as sugar.

From approximately 50,000 people in the 1950s and '60s, the population of this community has dwindled to less than 4,000 people today — of this, about 1,500 to 2,000 live in Kolkata. But a new website called the Desi Chinese Project is an earnest attempt at telling their story and creating a living archive. You can learn fascinating nuances behind Indo-Chinese culture like their food — have you heard of kou gan or fan-t'sai? — or read up stories and see visuals of ordinary people like Ah Leen, who has been living in India for 87 years.