This book deals with the history and career of the members of a Tamil family of Pondicherry who had migrated to French Indochina. Darmanathan Prouchandy of this family was the first steam navigator from south India, who plied steamers in the Mekong delta since 1891. His attempt to ply a steamer between Saigon and Thailand was thwarted by the French colonial authorities of Saigon in 1895.
Later Saverikannu Prouchandy of the same family emerged as one of the leading landowners and rubber plantation owner of Indochina. He was conferred the award of Chevalier du Mérite Agricole by the French Government in the year 1914.
Much later in the 1930s, his nephew Léon Prouchandy started the Dress Reforms Movement among the Indians. He exhorted his countrymen to take to Western dresses while travelling abroad. In the 1940s, he joined the Netaji movement to free India from foreign yoke. He ultimately became a martyr for the cause of Indian Independence.
Though this book recounts the stroy of this family since the 1870s, it is also in many ways the history of the Indians and Tamils like the Nattukottai Chettiars and the Tamil Muslims, who had migrated to French Indochina.