In search of Roots - From South Africa to TN

 

As a young boy, Gopaul Chetty sat by the fireside at his home in Natal, South Africa, listening to his father tell tales of growing up in a small village in Tamil Nadu.

So about five years ago, Gopaul, 59, began tracking down his father's family and farm in Tiruvannamalai district, among the first South African Indians to successfully do so. "Later this month, about 300 Indians from South Africa will be coming to Chennai to trace their families," says Rev Dr J Onesimus Thayalagaran, Gopaul's cousin.

This year marks the 150th anniversary of the arrival of Indian indentured labour in the KwaZulu- Natal province in South Africa, and Gopaul is returning to Pietermaritzburg, where he now lives and runs businesses, to participate in the celebrations next week. Chennai too will host an event, which Thayalagaran is still planning.

"A number of Indians in South Africa have prospered and now want to trace their roots," says Gopaul. "The South African archives have documents of every Indian who landed there, with details of the village they were from," he says.

Gopaul's father, Kullan Venkata Chetty, went to Natal on a ship from Madras at the age of 25 in May 1909. "Indians didn't go as slaves in chains," stresses Gopaul, 59. "They went in search of greener pastures. My grandfather died when my father was 16, leaving him to look after his mother and sister. The 13-hectare farm wasn't producing enough," he says.