Viriah: A Telugu Story from the British Empire

Viriah  was one of the 1.3 million Indians sent as slaves to sugarcane plantations in the British empire in the 1800s. A young poor farming lad from a small village in India, overcoming all odds, he becomes a Sirdar (manager) of one of the largest farms in South Africa.

1880s. India is under oppressive British occupation. Viriah is the only male child of a small farmer, Ramaiah. Doted by his sisters and parents, he has a joyful childhood in an idyllic village. When he turned a teen, a famine came and turned Ramaiah from a proud farmer to a poor laborer. Young Viriah tries to help his father. There is a fracas, when his sister’s jewelry goes missing and in a fit of anger, Ramaiah accuses his son of stealing them. Heartbroken, Viriah leaves home and goes to the town of Vijayawada to earn money, buy the jewelry and help his family. There, an arkati (recruiter) tricks him into signing up for indenture, promising him easy riches. Without realizing what he is getting into, Viriah boards the ship in 1904. He meets Shaikh and Venkatsamy two coolies, who become friends for life. The trio save a female coolie from being abused by the ship attendant. 

Viriah’s life on the sugarcane farm in Natal, South Africa was quite similar to that of slaves. The coolies worked from dawn to dusk, got whipped at the slightest transgression, their wages and rations would get withheld at the whims & fancies of the farm owners. He observes female coolies being sexually harassed all the time. After working for ten years on the Gledhow farm, he is unable to save any money. He saves a fellow coolie who is beaten up by the farm owner and takes him to Gandhi’s ashram. A disciple of Gandhi helps him get work in the Hewlett farm. He falls in love and marries Rajamma, a young, shy, telugu woman. Because of his hard work and knowledge of sugarcane farming, he is made a Sirdar, the manager of the farm.

He longs for his parents and sisters with whom there was no contact since leaving India. After thirty years in South Africa, he returns to India in 1932, much against the wishes of his wife and friends. His heart breaks to find out that his parents and a sister died in penury. After an altercation, his only daughter returns to South Africa. Unscrupulous relatives fleece him of his hard earned savings. His industrious son Nagoor is poisoned to death. He yearns for his daughter, but cannot afford the ship fare to return to Natal. Weeping for his daughter, missing Natal, alone and broken, he passes away in 1952.

Krishna, his great grandson, spent almost his entire adult life to search for him. The search, the miraculous find and the story of Indian Indenture at large is the book, Viriah.  His father Gurumurthy translated the book into Telugu, which recently got the “best Telugu translation” award from Telugu University.

The English & Telugu versions of the book are available on Amazon, the Telugu audio version is on www.dasubhashitam.com and Telugu online version at Chaduvu App