DASRATH Vinesh Maniram honours and celebrates his 100-year family history in Merebank in his book Made in Merebank: Life After Indenture.
The book will be launched at the Durban International Book Fair.
Maniram, 54, is a businessman who now resides on the Bluff, south of Durban.
He is married to Rashie Maniram, has a son, Nashendra Krishna Maniram, and two grandchildren.
Maniram said he started writing his memoir in 2020, using a mix of references from family documents, national archives on indentured history and stories told to him by his grandmother.
“My cousin Ravindra and his daughter Chanelle Lutchman wanted to do a family tree. They searched the archives of the UKZN documentary centre with indentured numbers and uncovered a string of valuable information. They completed the family tree and this inspired me to take it one step further by writing this book.
“Made in Merebank is a journey of my indentured grandparents, from a land of famine and poverty to another land of torture and suffering. They rose to become free citizens in South Africa.”
Maniram said the book had 15 chapters with subjects ranging from his grandparents’ journey from India to their indentured lives in South Africa and to their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.
“I play the storyteller. I aim to take the reader down a journey of their own into their own lives and to bring back memories of the lives that we lived with what little we had. I also wanted to share the old days with our youth of today.”
The Durban International Book Fair will start at The Globe at Suncoast on August 9 to 13.
Book launches, author meet and greets, panel discussions and presentations covering various genres, writing techniques, and the trends in the publishing industry have been planned.
The Made in Merebank: Life After Indenture book launch is on August 13 on the Alan Paton stage.