In May, 1893, a 24-year-old-attorney arrived at Durban on a year's girmit (contract) to fight a lawsuit for Dada Abdullah and Co. Thrown out of the train to Pretoria, he was to taste the racial discrimination that plagued the land at that time. Subsequent experiences in South Africa sensitixed him to the plight of thegirmtiyas (bonded labours). Suspended between despair and a hope for an implausible escape to their promised land, die girmitiyas found in this young attorney a voice that would guide them to a new dawn. In The Girmltiya Saga, Giriraj Kishore retraces the socio-political background of the 19^{th and 20lh-century South Africa, highlighting the importance of the young attorney's actions in South Africa and their monumental significance for humanity as a whole.}