The Incredible Journey from India: An Untold Part of South African History

The Incredible Journey from India, An Untold Part of South African History is a fascinating book that chronicles the history of several generations of one family; the Narrandeses, in Natal, South Africa. From their initial arrival in the 1860s, as part of the indentured Indian work force required to cultivate and maintain the British sugar cane fields, it documents their attempts to establish themselves as more than simply agricultural labourers. With their obvious educational advantages they were able to overcome the most appalling bureaucratic inhumanities afforded to the lower classes and eventually, through hard work and perseverance, bring about significant changes to the socio-economic fabric of the Natal region and South Africa as a whole. From sports to education, from politics to religion, no area was immune from the Narrandeses influence. Their approach was inclusive and all encompassing, paying no attention to race, language or creed. A perfect example of this being the dictionary brought to Natal from Indian by Narain Dass and pictured in the book. The well worn pages of which contained translations from English into Hindi, Urdu and Persian. However, we would never have known about their achievements were it not for the author's serendipitous discovery of a meticulously collected treasure trove of historical family documents and photographs in a relative's London flat. The archive not only allowed the piecing together of the family's history, but in some instances cast doubt on what would have otherwise been unquestioned historical facts. A case in point being the now famous Pietermaritzburg train "incident" involving Gandhi. Was his experience as traumatic as the history books now suggest What this demonstrates is that what we now take as "fact" may well have been through all sorts of misinterpretation and corruption as it is passed down to us through history