I was on a journey to Kanpur to work on the Ganges and met anarkati who took me in a buggy to a recruiting depot. At that time I was aged 25 years. My mother was alive but not my father and I had three brothers.
There were four others at the first depot that I was taken and offered a job. I was told that I would get 12 annas a day and would go to Fiji. I was unwilling. I was told that Fiji was near Calcutta and all I needed was to go there for six months. I was later taken to Calcutta and told that I could go to Fiji for five years at 12 annas per day. I could return after five years if I wished, or if I desired to remain I would get land, ten acres of it, and have the same rights as others living there. I was still unwilling and was again told that Fiji was near Calcutta and a nice place and that I could return after six months. I was taken to a European Magistrate who told the interpreter to explain to me that I would be going to Fiji for five years and could return from there after five years at my own expense, but if I remained there for ten years I would get a free return passage.
I was in Calcutta for a month. In the depot all ate together and people slept with others t wives. I did not like such behaviour. Hindus and Muslims and all castes intermingled. I refused to eat for four days. There in the depot there were some people who had been to Fiji and said it was a good place, and I should go there and not make a fuss. Some of them claimed to be Brahmins and sadhus. There were men there who were returning for a second time. They said that Fiji provided opportunities for prosperity, and that I should go there. One of them said he was a Brahmin and I could eat with him. But there was no caste or religion there.
I had left my wife in the village. On board the ship we were given dog biscuits to eat; they were very hard. Some ate, others did not. We slept like cattle. Married couples were separate but there were no separate cabins for them. The trip was rough.
Once in Fiji we were loaded into punts and taken like cattle to Nukulau. I had only a pair of clothes. I remained in Nukulau for two weeks. Meat and fish were provided for food but vegetarians could refrain from them.
I served my indenture in Lovulovu working for the C.S.R. Co. as a field worker. Indian sardars gave us our tasks and were heartless. The white men whipped us. Many of us were distressed and cried but nobody took any notice of our pain. Each man kept to his problems.
There was an overseer who told an Indian woman that he wanted her. She asked him to wait till the next day. This woman, with two other women, devised a plan. When he came the next day, two of the women remained at a distance. When he approached the one he had spoken to the previous day, she asked him to take off all clothes: when he lifted his shirt to take it off all three women jumped on him and beat him up and threw him into a drain. There were no consequences for the women.