Sunday, October 09, 2005
Francis Assisi writes about:
As the first ever autobiography of an Indian indentured laborer, this book is important in more ways than one.
First of all, it chronicles the legacy of an Indian migrant to Surinam in his own words. Though it is estimated that over one and a half million Indians went overseas to earn a living as indentured workers in the 19th and early part of the 20th centuries to Southeast Asia, Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific islands, there are no first person accounts of those early Indian immigrants
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Well we have another diasporic film coming out of the United States.
Karma Confession & Holy directed by Manish Gupta. He also made the film, India Fish in American Waters.
'It will be a very Woody Allen kind of film covering three layers of characters, the Indians from India and in the US, the Indians born and bred in the US and the true-blue Americans', says Harish Dayani.
Comments
Yes, such accounts are really difficult to find. There is one for Fiji though by an ex-indentured labourer (although it is believed that he did not write it personally, but narrated the story to Benarsidas Chaturvedi who then wrote it down): Totaram Sanadhya, 'My Twenty-One Years in the Fiji Islands'.
http://www.pacificislandbooks.com/JPEGS/My%20Twenty-one%20years%20in%20the%20Fiji%20Islands%209822080034.jpg
Hope the link works.
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