The correspondence is between one Nicolaas Ondaatje (in Tamil, Ukantācci), a Chettiyar from Colombo, Sri Lanka who was sent to the Cape of Good Hope for ten years as a punishment by the Dutch East India Company (VOC).
The letters consist mainly of family matters like births and deaths, caste rules, ideas on rehabilitation to get back to Sri Lanka.
The letters are noted for their ungrammatical construction, lack of punctuation and many loan words from Sanskrit, Persian, Portuguese and Dutch.
[citation needed] The members of the Ondaatje family, originally hailing from Tamil Nadu, India made their home in Southern Sri Lanka.
Nicolaas, a prominent member of the trading caste generally known as Chettys in Southern India and Sri Lanka, lived as a free man at the Cape during his stay.