The experienced Kallis notched up his 39th Test ton and teamed up with tailenders to guide South Africa beyond the 350-run mark after they were down 283 for eight at one stage.
The day clearly belonged to Kallis who defied a rib injury to score his second ton of the series and join Australia captain Ricky Ponting as the second highest century-getter in Test cricket.
Temperamental pacer S Sreesanth was the chief wrecker for India scalping five South African wickets for 114 runs while
Zaheer Khan gave him able company with figures of three for 89.
In reply, Gautam Gambhir (65) and Sachin Tendulkar (49) put India on course with a fitting reply as the visitors reached 142 for two at close on the second day of the match at the Newlands track which appeared to have eased out considerably.
After bundling out South Africa, the Indians were in for early trouble as they lost Virender Sehwag and Rahul Dravid inside the first 30 runs.
But Gambhir and Tendulkar held fort and rebuilded the Indian innings with an unbeaten 114-run third wicket stand to end the day trailing South Africa by 220 runs with eight wickets still in hand.
Luck also favoured India and Gambhir in the day as the left-hander was let off twice in the slip cordon.
Earlier, resuming at the overnight score of 232 for four, the South Africans relied on the brilliance of Kallis and a stout resistance from the last two batsmen to post a competitive total on board.
Sreesanth bowled a hostile spell of seam bowling to turn things in India's favour to some extent with the second new ball but the Indians could not polish off the tail as quickly as they would have liked.
Sreesanth scalped Ashwell Prince (47) and Mark Boucher (0) off successive balls to raise Indian hopes of bringing an early end to the South African innings.
The drama started in the 84th over bowled by Sreesanth. By that time, Kallis and Prince had added 98 runs for the fifth wicket. Sreesanth's delivery pitched on the seam just outside off-stump and then shaped in to breach through left-handed Prince's defence.
The very next delivery to Boucher moved a shade away at the last moment as the wicketkeeper-batsman edged it to Dhoni
behind the stumps.
Kallis averted the hat-trick as Sreesanth bowled a no-ball. One of the greatest among South African batsmen, Kallis reached 99 with consecutive boundaries from Sreesanth.
He then reached his 39th century with a tuck to the square leg region for a single. Kallis, who scored his seventh ton at Newlands is now equal in terms of the number of centuries with Ponting.
Sreesanth, on the otherhand, completed his third five-wicket haul in Test cricket by getting Morne Morkel to edge one to Dhoni.
Zaheer then removed Dale Steyn with a well disguised short ball that lobbed off his gloves to Cheteshwar Pujara at gully.
Kallis got an able ally in Paul Harris (7) as they thwarted Indian bowlers' bid to polish off the tail. The dogged duo put in 27 runs before Ishant came round the wicket to cramp Harris for room as his desperate fend flew off to Pujara at leg gully.
Kallis, who is slowly reaching another milestone of 12,000 runs in Test cricket, showed a lot of character despite pain in his rib-cage as he he added valuable runs first with Harris and then with Lonwabo Tsotsobe.
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