CHAPTER ONE

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

1.1 Travel writing: an introduction

Travel has been integral to human life even in its nomadic state. After

humans had settled down to a calmer existence they travelled far and wide. O f

and on, this adventurous human activity has been recorded. In fact, as Theroux

remarks in The Tao o f Travel, the travel narrative is the ‘oldest in the world, the

story the wanderer tells to the folk gathered around the fire after his return from

a journey” (Preface, 2011, viii). These travel tales that may range from being

full o f wonder, delight, awe, are very often instructional and entertaining. At

times, some o f them may be even farcical. However, the best end in sheer

pleasure at the amazing travelling experience and the admiration for the human

involved in travel.

Often some o f the tales remain verbally untold, but many more get told

in writings, which though professedly objective, tend to become creative, since

the urge to imaginatively present human experience o f travel is the impulse

behind such kind o f ‘created’ writing. Budkuley in an article, ‘Interplay of

Motive and M o tif in Marathi Travel Writing’, perceptively observes in this

regard:

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 Stasis, monotony and isolation are in all likelihood the three angst creating

conditions that human psyche has always abhorred and striven to counter by

way o f adventure, change and creativity. This can be the possible explanation

for the timeless urge for travel as well as for travel writing displayed by

humanity. In fact, it can be argued that, in these twin exploits the innermost

craving of mankind for novelty, mobility and communication is fulfilled.

(Unpublished Article, Dec. 2002, n.p)

It is thus that travel writing, fulfils the innermost craving o f mankind.

Interestingly, in recent times, it has also become the focus o f critical and

literary inquiry. The travel voices speak a language conditioned by their socio­

cultural milieu. While the western travel-voice has been substantially studied,

especially after the 1980s, the same cannot be said of Indian travel writing. As

such, the present study has undertaken the task o f exploring this dynamic body

of literary work in the Indian context, with available theoretic and critical

inputs.

1.2 A case for the study o f Indian Travel writing:

Being considered as a sub-genre of literary prose, until recently, travel

writing, had been a marginalized domain in literary discourse. This had been

the case, in spite o f the sheer quantum, the distinctive nature and focus of

travel-related work, as also its antiquity, reaching back by centuries, at times

millennia. For instance, referring to travel narratives in the Biblical tradition,

Hulme and Youngs point out to the Exodus in the Bible, and in the classical

tradition, to travel related saga o f the epic hero Odysseus immortalized by

Homer in Odyssey(2002, 2). In the travel tradition in India, for instance, the

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triumphs and travails in the course o f journeys undertaken by the semi-divine

protagonists o f the ancient epics M ahabharata and Ramayana are only too well

known to be discussed. Thus, although travel writing has had such rich

antecedents, it was hardly accorded, the critical recognition enjoyed by

conventional literary genres like poetry, drama, novel and other prose writing

like the essay or the short story.

One o f the primary reasons for this neglect is the fact that travel

literature has been conglomerated into the miscellaneous mass o f writing that

includes anything ranging from maps, tourist guide-books to photo essays,

manuals and journals pertaining even remotely to travel. Literary travel writing

thus has not been separated or disengaged from the bulk o f its popular non-

literary counterpart. However, the recent upsurge o f interest in the so-called

marginal literature traditionally branded as ‘sub literary genres’, mainly due to

the development o f theoretical approaches like Formalism, Deconstruction,

Discourse analysis, New historicism and most tellingly Postcolonial discourse

has also kindled interest in travel writing, as a distinct literary form/genre.

(Campbell, 2002, 261-264).

Thanks to the publication o f The Cambridge Companion to Travel

Writing (2002), which extensively analyses travel writing in English between

1500 to the late twentieth century and o f other more inclusive studies devoted

to the contemporary period in western travel writing such as Alison Russell’s

Crossing Boundaries: Postmodern Travel Literature (2000) and Holland and

Huggan’s jointly edited critical volume, Tourists with Typewriters: Critical

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Reflections on Contem porary Travel Writing (1998), travel writing as a genre

has come to stay. These studies reveal the orientation of research on travel

writing as a genre taking place in the west i.e. mainly U.S.A and Western

Europe.

In addition to these works, the iconic and seminal text of Mary Louise

Pratt, namely, Im perial Eyes: Travel w riting and Transculturation that

appeared as early as 1992 m ust be mentioned. In Pratt’s tome, European travel

writing from 1750 to 1980 has been scrutinized from a cross-cultural

perspective. In turn, this has helped lay the ground for a postcolonial reading of

the travel genre. Thus, travel writing in the west has now become a potential

domain for multiple critical explorations. This has considerably erased the

stereotypical image o f travel writing as popular consumerist fare. In fine, this

emergent critical canon has helped build the notion of travel writing as a

compelling literary genre deserving critical attention as well as theoretic

analysis and interpretation.

As against this, Indian critical writing about travel has little to show by

way o f generic analysis and theoretic inputs. Although travel writing in India

has generated critical interest and it has been explored in recent times in works

such as Simonti Sen’s Travels to Europe: S e lf and Other in Bengali Travel

Narratives 1870-1910 (2005), and Inderpal Grewal’s Home and Harem:

Nation, Gender, Empire and the Cultures o f Travel (1996), their concern has

been with the contextual, mainly socio-cultural, rather than with a generic or

literary-critical enquiry. M oreover, these works confine themselves to a

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specific historical period that is, nineteenth century India, which has seen an

upsurge o f travel books especially to England.

W ith the exception o f Vasant Sawant’s Marathi work, Pravas Varnan:

Ek Vangamay Prakar (1987) based on his Ph.D. thesis and Surendra Mathur’s

Yatra Sahitya Ka Udbhav A ur Vikas (1962), a broad perspectival, cross-

literary, generic study o f Indian travel writing befitting the Indian multilingual

scenario in the languages, known to this researcher, such as Marathi, Konkani

and Hindi seems not to have been undertaken till date. This offers tremendous

scope for a multi-pronged research in this relatively unexplored area.

Considering the apparent shortfall o f critical work into this challenging

literary domain, an investigation into the historical context as well as generic

visage o f travel writing as a literary genre in the Indian context, was felt to be

necessary. Moreover, since travel writing has willy-nilly camouflaged itself

across the borders o f various sub-generic identities, being written in forms like

diaries, letters, even Active narratives and essays, among others, it is on the

periphery o f multiple genres. It is also concerned, literally and metaphorically,

with crossing o f physical/spiritual boundaries and venturing into unfamiliar

domain/locales. This complexity o f the travel genre and the multifaceted nature

of Indian travel writing, thus offered a significant area for undertaking

research.

1.3. Indian Travel Writing - A historical overview:

Indian culture has been seen to be closely linked to travel. As is the case

with some other cultures o f the world, travel has been essential to its existence,

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growth and sustenance. Thus, travel has been also a part of the ancient Indian

literary tradition. Surendra Mathur, for instance identifies three ages o f travel

tradition in Indian literature. As categorized by Mathur, the travel tradition in

Indian literature falls into: the Vedic age (1500BC to 1200BC), the Pre-historic

Age (1200 BC to 600BC), and the Historic Age (600BC tol200AD). With the

help o f available works o f these periods, he traces the chronological as well as

the evolutionary path o f travel tradition in India.

M athur also reveals how during these ages Indian travellers visited

various parts o f the world with varied objectives such as, political, trade-

related, religious and educational. He elucidates how with the development in

modes o f travel more and m ore places came to be explored (as cited by Sawant,

1987, 10-11).

However, although India has had a long tradition of travel, writing about

travel, according to Sawant, is relatively of recent origin. This view is partially

right, since travel writing as an independent genre had not emerged till the

modem period in India though there were instances o f travel related writing in

epics and poetry. For instance, Dr Gopalkrishna and Jois point out that in the

ancient Indian literature viz Ram ayana, M ahabharata and Bhagwata, “there

are instances o f heroes visiting holy places, sacred rivers, venerable hermitages

and the authors o f these works have given their vivid description”(Tanjavur to

Vijayarajagiridurga, 1997, Introduction, xv-xvi). Similarly, they also observe

how many a work in Indian languages, such as the Sanskrit mega poem

Meghdoot by Kalidasa (c400) “narrates [his] visits to rivers, hills, mountains

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and valleys” (ibid, xvi). They also note the sthalapuranas in the important

temples o f South India which were descriptions o f the holy places visited by

the Tamil saints o f yore (ibid, xviii). However, all these travel accounts were

subsumed under the broader generic frameworks o f either epics or saint poetry.

Simonti Sen has observed that the traveller has not been a very popular

figure in the H indu /shastric tradition. She points out that one of the words for

travel bhram an - a derivative o f the Sanskrit root word bhram means to make a

mistake or to err. In this sense bhraman, according to Sen, means aimless

wandering. She cites the exam ple o f an episode in the epic Mahabharata,

where on being asked by Yaksha as to who is truly happy, Yuddhisthira the

eldest o f Pandavas, cites among other things the one who “stireth not from

home” as being the happiest, to depict this negative notion o f travel, wherein

travel had been undertaken as a punishment or banishment. Though Sen

clarifies that in the context o f pilgrimage, travel is encouraged and given a high

status; she concludes that traditional travel as an autonomous practice was

never encouraged (2005, 2-3). This may partially explain why the genre

remained subsumed in pilgrimage narratives or epics in the ancient Indian

literature.

The travels appended by compulsory abode as a hermit which is referred

to as Vanvas (stay in a forest for a certain period, generally as a requirement

rather than as a voluntary abode) was also an aspect highlighted in the two

epics Ramayana and Mahabharata through the episode o f Ram, Laxman, Sita in

Ramayana, and the Pandavas (once with mother Kunti and later with common

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wife Draupadi) in M ahabharata. The aspect o f Vanvas that connotes a negative

notion o f travel as suffering is very similar to that implied in western works

like The E pic o f Gilgamesh or Odyssey. Leed, for instance, in his in depth

analysis o f western travel writing in, The M ind o f the Traveler: from

Gilgamesh to G lobal Tourism, points out that the journey in these two western

ancient works was:

[A]n explication o f fate or necessity, as a revelation o f those forces that

sustain and shape, alter and govern human destinies. The travels narrated in

the Odyssey and The Epic o f Gilgamesh are god-decreed and thus not wholly

voluntary nor pleasurable (1991, 7).

Although the notion o f travel in the two western and Indian epics is

similar, unlike its western counterparts, which have been called as travel epics

(Emphasis added, Leed, 6), the Indian works are primarily epics and not travel

epics, since travels form only a part o f the larger narratives. In ancient Indian

literature, travel writing was thus embedded in genres like epics and poetry.

In early medieval Indian literature too, travel formed a part o f the major

genre o f poetry, particularly o f Bhakti poetry. The Bhakti lyric, as Sisir Kumar

Das points out in A H istory o f Indian Literature (500-1399): From the Courtly

to the Popular (2005), was a new form of literature, a product o f the Bhakti

Movement that began in the 6th century in Tamil Nadu and developed in

various Indian languages through the medieval ages. Further, he points out that,

there were two groups: one the worshippers o f the deity Siva called the

Shaivites and the other, the worshippers of the deity Vishnu and his incarnation

Krishna called the Vaishnavites.

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 According to Das, the saints who belonged to the above sects would

travel from one temple to another praising God followed by the devotees. He

observes further, that this articulation was not the calm recitation reminiscent

of the ancient Bhakti tradition in India; it was frenzy-an ecstasy, an outpouring

of love for God. Through various examples o f literary works belonging to this

period Das shows that in the Bhakti lyrics, music and folk practices were used

and a sacred geography was created. Thus, he argues, that a new genre of

poetry w hich preached the religion o f compassion and love and crossed across

various social and cultural boundaries came into being. (Das, 27-35).

Though the Bhakti movement as perceived by Das, was a result of “an

expression o f a strong hatred against the Buddhists and the Jains” (ibid, 28), it

also spelt a desire to change the rigidity that had set into the traditional Hindu

religion m aking it intolerant and exclusionist. These Bhakti lyrics were thus not

only structurally different in their usage of folk practices, but also thematically

revolutionary in endorsing and propagating the religion of universal love and

compassion. These poems could be called travel lyrics since they were

composed on the move and w ere necessitated by the travelling experiences of

the saints.

Critics like Das, have also identified forms o f the travel book in the

compositions o f the later proponents of the Bhakti tradition especially in

Marathi literature. Namdev (1270-1350), a disciple of Jnaneshwar alias

Jnanadev, for instance, wrote an account of his pilgrimage to north India titled

Thirtavaliche Abhanga. Das calls this text a proto form of a travelogue (Ibid,

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205). The Lilacharitra (1276), written by Mhaimbhat who belongs to the Nath

Sampradaya preceding Jnaneshwar, has also been called as a travel

autobiography {Encyclopaedia o f Indian Literature; 4376). There was thus a

rich tradition o f travel-related writing in ancient as well as early medieval

Indian literature until almost the fourteenth century, albeit subsumed in the

larger generic forms like the epic and poetry.

However, the spirit o f adventure which is a characteristic of western

travel w riting is absent in Indian travel writing. In all likelihood, with the

various invasions in the later medieval period, India recoiled inwards and was

not able to deal with the spate o f invasions that suddenly followed. Karsondas

Mulji a Gujarati native, social reformer and an avid endorser o f travel in the

mid nineteenth century points out in his book, England Ma Pravas{ 1886j, how

the Muslim invasions must have curbed the desire for travel in India and led to

a phobia o f foreign travel among the Hindus (the native religion o f the

medieval period). He further asserts that if travel was not mingled with religion

then perhaps the Hindus would not have travelled at all. (As qtd in Sawant,

1987, 4). Thus, travel during late medieval period, in the Indian context, was

largely, if not entirely, religious. Hence, the earliest accounts o f travel in Indian

languages were in the form o f pilgrimage narratives.

To a large extent, the M uslim invasions and later the early European

colonial control generated a sense o f fear and led to lesser travel abroad. There

was a strict social censure linked to travel abroad referred to as the

sindubhandhi (restrictions put on travel beyond and across the Sindhu river,

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during the medieval age) and slowly travel came to mean being exposed to the

harmful influences of foreign people and their ways o f living. Thereby, travel

was associated with the notion o f potential defilement and by late medieval

period came to be confined exclusively to the obligatory religious pilgrimage.

A significant point o f departure from this trend was marked with the

advent o f modernity during the colonial period, when “travel received

recognition as a supremely important secular practice” (Sen, 3). Now, there

was a gradual curiosity and so a desire among the Indians to travel abroad,

especially to England (the land o f the White Sahib). In fact, the history of

Indian travel writing in English begins with this endeavour. The first travel

book in English by an Indian w as Travels (1794) written by Dean Mahomed an

immigrant working for the British army. It presents a view o f India to the

colonizer w ith an attempt to create ‘brand India’. As such, Dean Mahomed was

one o f the first immigrants to realize the benefit o f asserting the native identity

for survival and recognition in the West.

Subsequently, it was only in the nineteenth century when journeys to

foreign countries were undertaken on a large scale. Such a desire for travel is

seen articulated in the narratives o f this period. Karsondas Mulji recorded his

visit to Europe (which to the Indian imagination was England) in Gujarati.

Likewise, Trailokyanath M ukharji a Bengali employed with the British

government in India wrote a travel book in English on his visit to London in

1886 titled A Visit to Europe (1889). Another well-known Bengali, Romesh

Chandra Dutt, a highly acclaimed litterateur, political economist historian and a

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civil service officer in British bureaucracy wrote a travel book in English Three

Years in E urope (1890).

Travel and travel w riting in India in the nineteenth century was thus

largely determined by the colonial enterprise, a westward journey which was

liberating, and strengthened the bond of the self to its traditional Indian ethos.

(This point is discussed at length in Chapter Three under the heading, ‘the

emergence: m odem versus traditional travelling se lf). It was during this

period, as Bhaskar Mukhopadhayaya points out, that the modern travelogue in

Bengali emerged. He opines that this was mainly due to the influx o f modem

genres like the novel, biography, autobiography and diary that placed the self

as the narrative focus. He also traces a certain colonization o f experience for

the rise o f the modern travelogue in Bengal during this period (2002, 298).

Other critics like Sisir Kumar Das in Indian Ode to the West Wind: Studies in

Literary Encounter also point towards a similar colonial influence (2001, 186).

In the ancient as well as medieval Indian literature, then, travel genre

was at the periphery. In ancient languages like Sanskrit and Tamil too, critics

have pointed out that it was not an autonomous genre. In ancient Tamil

literature though the basic elements o f travel book were present, the modem

travel book like the other m odem Indian genres “owes itself to western

influence in the country” {Encyclopedia o f Indian Literature, 4383) In the case

of Sanskrit, K. Krisnamoorthy points out that, “we do not have anything like a

separate literary genre of travelogue in classical Sanskrit. It comes into view

only after the advent o f m odem education in the nineteenth century” (ibid,

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4381). A sim ilar opinion is expressed with regard to modem Indian languages

like Marathi (ibid, 4376) and Bengali too. (‘Ode to West Wind’, Das, 186)

It can be argued that though travel writing, as an independent genre like

the epic or the poetry, is absent in Indian literature, it nevertheless presented

itself as a sub genre ensconced in larger frameworks like the epic and poetry.

Thus, it can be maintained that the evolution o f the travel genre was slow.

Initially, it w as engulfed by other major genres and could assert itself as an

independent narrative only as late as the nineteenth century. Though the role of

western education cannot be denied in helping shape the genre, especially at

the hands o f the elite educated Indian, there were a host o f other factors like the

rise o f nationalistic spirit, the journalistic demands o f the day, change in

patronage from the local princes to the British imperial power that led to the

emergence o f travel writing as an independent genre during the nineteenth

century. This aspect will be subsequently taken up for detailed discussion and

analysis in Chanter Three which is based on late nineteenth century Indian

travel books. Presently a word needs to be said about the focus, the objectives,

the scope, the methodology and the hypothetical bearings of the study.

1.4. Focus o f the present study:

The present study focuses on Indian Travel writing and aims at

investigating into the general belief or misconception that there is little or no

proper writing pertaining to travel in India. Indian travel writing, though

relatively a nascent genre, has become increasingly multi-faceted over the

years, and offers wide scope for study and analysis. The study aspires to be a

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modest attem pt at tracing the trajectory o f the developing generic visage of

travel writing and critically tapping what has been termed henceforth as

‘Voices in Transit’ to arrive at duly substantiated finding . In view o f this, the

present study has been called, Voices in Transit: A Critical Study o f Indian

Travel W riting.

In the subsequent discussion, the objective o f the study, its scope,

proposed hypothesis, m ethodology employed, a brief overview o f texts

selected, the scheme o f chapterisation, the delimitation o f scope, and the usage

of the specific terms (Indian and Indian voices) in the title is sought to be

clarified.

1.5. Objective o f the study:

The main objective o f the study Voices in Transit: A Critical Study o f

Indian Travel W riting, is to investigate travel writing as a distinct literary genre

in Indian literature. This study o f the Indian literary articulation in transit has

been gleaned from different epochs o f history-a history that has been wrought

with the intervention of invasions, but also restructured with the drive and

struggle for freedom. As a result, this study retraces the historical trajectory of

an India gradually evolving from the erstwhile imperial domain into the

culturally pluralistic republic o f today. Thus it aims at mainly investigating this

additional dimension o f transition in the Indian experience through the Voices

in Transit: A Critical Study o f Indian Travel Writing.

Although the study examines various travel books under the broad

rubric o f ‘Indian travel narratives’, it cannot be presumed that they constitute a

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homogeneous monolith o f w riting with a clear formal identity. In fact, these

travel writings are defined and enriched by their very heterogeneity. It was,

therefore, necessary to examine the multifarious formal dimension o f such

writing and establish its generic identity. The present study has also undertaken

this endeavour.

1.6. The scope o f the study:

For the sake o f convenience and emphasis, this study has focused on

selected works o f Indian travel writing dating roughly from 1857 to 2004, the

period which coincides with the dawn of modernity in Indian literature.

Although, the study encompasses a wide ranging period, for the purpose of this

study texts have been selected depending on their relevance, availability and

potential for research. For instance, a single text from the eighteenth century,

namely Dean M ahom ed’s Travels (1794), is selected- the criteria for selection

being the pioneering role o f the book in introducing the theme o f native

consciousness in the emergent travel book, and also because he is the first of

the Diasporic voices o f Indian travel writers in English. In like manner two

texts namely Godse Bhatji’s M azha Pravas (1907) and Meera Kosambi’s

English translation o f Pandita Ramambai’s original work United Stateteschi

Lokasthithi ani Pravasavritta (1889) translated as Returning the American

Gaze: The P eo p le’s o f the U nited States (2003), have been selected because

they are quite perceptibly representative of the age and depict a pattern of

trends in the emergent travel writing o f their time.

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 The rest o f the texts by various writers are from the twentieth century.

They have been selected not only on the basis o f geographical space, but also

on the relevance o f the work to the emergence o f the concept o f India as a

nation, as well as to the diasporic notion o f Indianness. Hence, writers who are

htthans per se and writers o f Indian origin who describe themselves ds

immigrants/globetrotter have been considered.

Texts that are originally available in English, Marathi, and Konkani

have been selected for study. Some o f these texts have been available in

translation. This includes writings by Pandita Ramabai (translated from the

original M arathi to English), Rabindranath Tagore and Swami Vivekananda

(translated from Bengali to English) and Kakasaheb Kalelkar (translated from

Gujarati to Marathi).

The study aims at critically analysing the chronologically emerging

patterns and trends seen in the travel books, belonging to the period under

consideration. This investigation has been broadly issue-based and it has

adopted a comparative approach to the study o f relevant texts. Moreover,

insights from contemporary literary theory have been duly incorporated in this

study, wherever it was felt to be necessary, so as to make it more relevant to the

contemporary reader.

1.7. Hypotheses of the study:

In the light of the above mentioned objectives and scope, following

hypotheses have been formulated for investigation and verification:

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 1) That with the emergence o f modernity there has been a palpable

thematic transition taking place in the Indian travel genre during the colonial

era and it has continued to date with identifiable manifestations.

2) That this thematic transition was a fallout o f the socio-political and

cultural changes then occurring in India. As such there would be common

thematic features reflecting the Zeitgeist of the age.

3) That there was simultaneously a generic evolution taking place in

Indian travel w riting during the period under discussion.

4) That there could be distinct approaches to travel and travel writing

in the native and diasporic travel accounts, especially with regard to the

traveller’s affiliation to the notion o f ‘home’.

To verily the above hypotheses, travel books belonging to the above-

mentioned period have been selected. With the help o f these texts an extensive

study has been conducted in the relevant domain and chapters have been

formulated.

1.8. Methodology adopted:

1. Selection o f representative texts as tools for analysis to study the

pattern o f Indian travel writing.

2. Use o f multilingual texts as primary sources. Original texts from

Indian languages like Marathi and Konkani and translated texts from

Bengali in addition to texts in English have been used. Since a

language has a specific cultural context, it was imperative to tap this

aspect in the case o f a pluralistic, multilingual and culturally vibrant

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 country like In d ia .

3. Reading primary texts for analysing the nature o f the genre, in the

Indian context;

4. Investigation with the help o f relevant contemporary theoretic inputs

specifically from the post colonial discourse have been found to be

useful;

5. Use o f travel texts in other languages like Gujarati and Hindi that

are vital to travel-related thought as secondary texts.

6. Extensive use o f critical material across languages known to the

researcher.

7. Providing faithful translation of non-English critical material cited.

8. Use o f libraries, websites, the internet and other data analysing

sources.

1.9. The usage o f terms in the title:

1.9.1. ‘Indian writing’

The use o f the term Indian in the title o f the study needs clarification.

Hudson in his book An Introduction to the Study o f Literature, points out that a

national literature:

Is not a miscellaneous collection o f books which happen to have been written

in the same tongue or within a certain geographical area. It is a progressive

revelation, age by age, o f such nation’s mind and character. An individual

writer may greatly vary from the national type [...]. But his genius will still

partake o f the characteristic spirit o f his race, and in any number of

representative writer’s at any given time, that spirit will be felt as a well

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 defined quality pervading them all [...]. The history o f any nation’s literature,

then is the record o f the unfolding o f that nation’s genius and character under

one o f its most important forms o f expression. (1961, 32 and 33).

This view has been taken into account and extended to the present study

in identifying and focusing on Indian travel writing.

Hudson also elaborates another relevant aspect of categorization of

national literature in eras as the tim e or period factor:

A nation’s life has its moods o f exultation and depression; it’s epochs now of

strong faith and strenuous idealism ,[...]and while the manner o f expression

w ill vary greatly with the individuality o f each writer, the dominant spirit of

the hour,[...]will directly or indirectly reveal itself in his work) ...JThus

when we speak o f periods o f literature[...]we have in mind something far

more important than the establishment o f such chronological divisions

[,..]Su ch phrases really refer to differential characteristics—to those

distinctive qualities o f theme, treatment, manner, spirit, tone, by which the

literature o f each period as a whole is marked [...]which are more or less

pronounced in all the writers o f that period, and by virtue of which these

writers, despite their individual differences stand together as a group in

contrast with the groups formed by the writers o f other periods ( 35).

Indian literature in the same vein has both, a national character and spirit

that is distinctively Indian, and a temporal or periodic character that

distinguishes the writers o f a particular period from those of another. The term

Indian thus encompasses the literature o f the nation as having a common mind

and character unique to a nation and the periodic categorization as those

differential characteristics that m ark one national epoch from the other.

The term Indian w riting is used in the sense, referred by Das and Dev in

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Comparative Indian literature: Theory and Practice, as “a complex o f literary

relations” and further as ‘not only an inquiry into this unity’ but also “a study

into their diversity which enables one to understand the nature o f literary facts”

(1988, 95). The usage o f the term Indian writing would thus take into

consideration common national characteristics as well as concerns, and, the

diverse elements that define its literary nature and expression. Taking this

definition o f Indian writing into consideration the study has chosen texts from

various Indian languages known to the researcher.

1.9.2. ‘Travel w riting’:

The term Travel w riting would be used in the following senses:

1) As being literary-The Merriam Webster ’s Encyclopaedia o f

Literature defines literary as “of, relating to, or having the characteristics of

literature” (685) and the word literature as “writings in prose or verse;

especially writings having excellence of form or expression and presenting

ideas o f permanent or universal interest” (686). So the term literary in totality

would mean writings that have the quality o f excellence and presents ideas of

universal and permanent interest. Travel writing that are ‘literary’ in this sense

have been considered for study. This aspect has been fiirther elucidated in

Chapter Two where the literary and the popular travel writing have been

discussed and differentiated.

2) As being verbal and not pictorial or illustrated. The term Travelogue,

is therefore, not used in this study since it is defined as “film or illustrated

lecture about travel” (iOxford D ictionary and Thesaurus henceforth abbreviated

20
as OED, 821). There are few other terms in usage for the genre o f travel

writing such as, travel narrative, travel literature and travel writing. The word

‘narrative’ m eans “ordered account o f connected events” (OED, 496). To call

the travel genre as an ‘ordered account’ would be to limit its usage to

chronicles, history and report. Literary travel writing would naturally be

excluded if the term narrative is used. In critical discourse the term narrative

means “[A] telling o f some true or fictitious event or connected sequence of

events, recounted by a narrator to a narratee [...]. A narrative will consist of a

set of events (the story) recounted in the process o f narration (or discourse) in

which the events are selected and arranged in a particular order (the plot)”

{Oxford D ictionary o f Literary Terms:; henceforth abbreviated as ODLT, 219).

This critical sense o f the term, w hich presumes the presence o f narrator who

tells a story, cannot be applied to all types o f travel writings especially those

that deal w ith factual socio-political issues like V.S. Naipaul’s travel books

based on India. Although there are travel works which narrate stories

(imagined events) the use o f the term narrative then, would exclude fact based

travel works that do no have a story to narrate. The phrase travel book, on the

other hand, is found to be more appropriate to describe the concept since it is a

broad term which includes any “written or printed work with pages bound

along one side” (OED, 76) and also excludes any pictorial or illustrated work.

Where the phrase travel book w ould be used in the singular, the phrases travel

literature and travel writings are used as plural terms.

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1.9.3. The usage of ‘Voices’:

The usage o f the term voices in the title also needs clarification. This

term is not used in the sense o f the authorial voice prevalent in literary theory

where the term voice is used to indicate the all-pervading presence of the

author, who organizes and controls the text (See Abrams, 2000,219 and ODLT,

353-354). The usage o f the term voices in this sense would be appropriate for

conventional literary genres like a novel, drama or poem which have fictional

characterization, them e and narrative structure.

Travel writing, as w ould be elucidated in Chapter Two, defies any neat

categorization and is professedly a non-fictional work. Though its inherent

voice(s) are o f the respective writers, there is no underlying implication that

there is a distinct controlling authority whose presence is felt throughout the

text. On the other hand these voices are visualised as experimental, innovative,

distinct and pioneering borrow ing from the attributes implied in Salman

Rushdie’s ‘Introduction’ to the Vintage Book o f Indian Writing (1997). When

making the case for Indian w riting in English, he describes the Indian voice

specifically as having these four attributes. Firstly, indicating, ‘distinctiveness’,

when he refers to the achievement o f Indian writing in English as having

found: “literary voices as distinctively Indian” (xiii). Secondly, indicating

‘ambition’ ‘verve’ and as a kind o f writing back, when referring to the western

publishers excitement over this new body o f writing: “western publishers and

critics have been growing gradually more and more excited by the voices

emerging from India [...] British writers are often chastised by their reviewers

22
for their lack o f Indian style, ambition and verve. It feels as if the east is

imposing itself on the W est” (xiv). Thirdly, as ‘confident’ ‘indispensable’:

“these writers are ensuring that India, or rather Indian voice [...] will

henceforth be confident, indispensable participants in that literary

conversation” (xv). And lastly, indicating ‘innovation’ ‘fresh perspective’,

when he m entions the new generation of Indian writers in English, the Indian

writer Kiran Desai as: “the new est o f all these voices” (xxii). The phrase Indian

voices has been used within this study specifically in these senses as being an

authentic articulation that is distinct, ambitious, confident, indispensable,

innovative, vital and a kind o f ‘writing back’.

1.10. The list o f texts selected with the intended abbreviation to be used

within parenthesis in the study:

1. D ean Mahomed’s Travels o f Dean M ahomet- an 18th century

Journey through India. Edited by Michael Fisher {Travels', 1794).

2. Pandita Ramambai’s R eturning the Am erican Gaze: The P eople’s o f

The United States (2003).Translated by Meera Kosambi from the

original Marathi U nited Stateteschi Lokasthithi ani Pravasavritta

(1889) to English ( USLP/RAG; 1889).

3 . Vishnu Bhatt Godse Varsaikar’s M azha Pravas written in 1883,

published and transliterated from the original Modi to modem

Marathi by Chintaman Vaidya for the first time in 1907. The

referred work is edited by Datta Vaman Potdar published in

1966 (MP; 1907).

23
 4. Swami Vivekananda’s Memoirs o f European Travel. Translated

from the original Bengali Parivrajaka to English, by Advaita

Ashram translator (PV/MET; 1901).

5. Rabindranath Tagore’s The Diary o f a Westward Voyage. Translated

from the original Bengali Paschim Yatrir Diary, to English by Indu

D utt (PYD/DWV; 1925).

6. Kakasaheb Kalelkar’s Jevanleela. Translated from Gujarati to

M arathi by Naresh Mantri. (1958)

7. P.L. Deshpande’s Purvrang (Marathi O riginal; 1963).

8. R .K N arayan’s My Dateless Diary ( English Original; MDD, 1964).

9. Ravindra Kelekar’s Himalayant (Konkani Original; 1976).

10. Vikram Seth’s From Heaven Lake (English Original; FHL, 1983).

11. A m itav Ghosh’s In an Antique Land (English O r i g i n a l 1992).

12. Datta N aik’s Kalighat te Karunaghat (Konkani Original;KTK, 1995).

13. M eena Prabhu’s D akshinrang (Marathi O riginal; 1999).

14. Pico Iyer’s Sun after Dark-Flights into the Foreign (English

Original; SAD, 2004).

Translation o f source material from Indian languages into English has

been done by Dr. K.J.Budkuley, unless otherwise indicated.

1.11. Delimitation:

1. Although, this is a study o f Indian travel writing only sample texts

from languages known to this researcher have been selected for

study. Not regional languages per-se rather regional ethos has been

24
 sought to be represented, wherever possible, through the availability

of text in the original or in English translation.

2. The study o f the primary texts was chiefly limited to content and to

formal features o f the work rather than to the analysis of language,

since this would entail studies of native idiom and regional

language-specific usage that lie beyond the scope o f this study.

3. The study has not considered the author’s biography except in

cases where the context was felt to be necessary to understand the

nature o f their travel writing, or the evolution o f the genre of travel

writing.

4. Some texts which are well-known Indian travel books like Rahul

Sankrityayan’s travel books in Hindi, S.K. Pottekkattu’s in

Malayalam and V.K. Gokak’s in Kannada were not selected as

primary texts. Works of Pottekkatt and Gokak had to be left out due

to the researcher’s lack o f knowledge of these languages, since these

books w ere not available or accessible in translation. Rahul

Sankrityayan’s travel books have been used but as secondary texts,

representing the Zeitgeist o f the period between colonial renaissant

India and post independent India.

V.S. Naipaul stands as an anomaly among these writers. Unlike

the others, Naipaul is widely considered to be a non Indian writer by

various critics o f Indian writing in English. M. K.Naik for instance

excludes him from the pantheon o f Indian writing in English calling

25
 him a west —Indian writer since he is “so much o f an insider while

dealing with Caribbean life and character” (A History o f Indian

English Litearture, 1982. On the other hand, while acknowledging

his Indian ancestry, Panwar calls him a ‘western writer’ since he has

lived in England and ‘has been writing mainly with the western

reader in m ind” (2004, 186). Likewise Pallavi Rastogi shows how

he constructs an ‘English self ‘in his writing. Particularly

noteworthy is her observation that in his travel book, based on his

third visit to India titled India: A Million Mutinies Now (1990), he

“gazes at India through the eyes o f the Westerner” (274). Since this

is a study o f the ‘Indian voice’, Naipaul who presents a western

perspective was excluded from this study.

5) This study is introductory, and makes no claim to be comprehensive.

The questions and issues in the study are introduced and essayed,

rather than deliberated and resolved.

1.12. Layout of the chapters:

The study has been divided into the following chapters:

Chapter One: Introduction

In this introductory chapter, the critical inclination o f western literary

thought on travel writing has been elucidated. To put the study in perspective, a

brief overview o f travel writing in the period prior to 1857 i.e. the ancient and

medieval period is provided. It has been found that that the travel genre in the

ancient and medieval period was subsumed within the major literary genres

26
like the epic and poetry. W ith the advent o f colonization and subsequent socio­

political changes taking place in the Indian society, travel as a genre emerged,

on the literary horizon.

This Chapter also states the objective and the hypotheses of the present

study. Further, it spells out the scope o f the study, marks out its delimitation

and briefly discusses the methodology adopted for investigation.

The use o f certain terms in the title o f this thesis has also been explained

in this chapter. It lists the primary texts selected for study. Finally, it elucidates

the layout of the chapters with a brief discussion of the focus of the Chapter

and its contribution in testing the hypotheses. This Chapter ends with a brief

conclusion that highlights the general relevance of this study.

Chapter Two; Travel Writing: A Generic Introduction.

This Chapter is primarily designed to explicate and clarify the nature of

travel writing as a literary genre. Since one o f the hypotheses of the study is to

analyse the generic evolution, a generic introduction to this literary form was

found necessary.

This Chapter begins by explaining the contemporary usage of the term

‘genre’ in the light o f critical discourse. It has been deduced that travel writing

is a contemporary genre that is liminal, fluid and one that adopts various

literary forms. Notwithstanding this, it has been seen as having distinct literary

features the central among which is the imaginative element that makes it a

literary genre. The fact that the writer creates a story out o f the travelling

material, it has been argued, makes the travel book a constituent of a literary

27
genre. As such, the literary nature o f the travel book is sought to be established

in the course o f this Chapter. The three main features o f the travel genre have

been identified as the travelling self, the locale and the journey.

Chapter Three; The Emergent Voice o f Indian Travel Writing:

This Chapter primarily deals with the hypothesis regarding the thematic

transition of travel writing during the period undertaken for this study. As such

this Chapter covers Indian travel writing o f the period after 1857 till the 1920s.

Notwithstanding this, Dean Mahomed’s Travels (1794) has also been an

integral part o f this discussion. It has been argued in this Chapter that Indian

Travel writing emerged independently in the nineteenth century, and later

evolved gradually as a potent literary medium to ‘voice’ the nation. The factors

that were responsible for its independent emergence have been accordingly

discussed.

Terming this early travel voice as the emergent voice of Indian travel

writing, this Chapter undertakes to divide it for convenience into two strands-

each representing the elite voice and the common m an’s voice respectively.

These two categories will be elucidated in Chapter three at the appropriate

stage. Two travel books have been short listed as the representatives o f this

elite voice; namely, Pandita Ramabai’s USLP/RAG (1889) and Swami

Vivekananda’s P V/M ET (1901).The elite voice it has been argued was

primarily o f the social reformers. It was the prominent voice that spoke for the

nation during this crucial period in the history o f modem India.

28
 These reformist travellers to the west (Europe and America), compared

these progressive countries to their own country and made a plea for a

transformation and reconstitution o f their own societies. Since ‘nation’ became

the motif of their books, this Chapter discusses the concept o f the nation. These

elite travel writers adopted different approaches to voice their vision for the

nation. In the course o f this Chapter, the usage of these approaches has been

elucidated through the respective textual references and discussions. A

transition in the them atic m otif of this elite travel book from the nation to the

self has been traced in this chapter with the help of Rabindranath Tagore’s

PYD/DWV (1925).

On the other hand, this Chapter also notes that there was a common

man’s voice emerging with this elite voice. Two texts have been identified in

this Chapter as the representatives o f this voice. O f these, Dean Mohamed’s

Travels has been seen as the earliest voice and the precursor o f travel writing in

India and Godse B hatji’s MP (1907) as holding its own against the dominant

presence o f elite travel writing that emerged in the late and early twentieth

century.

Chapter Four; The Generic Blossoming of Indian Travel Writing:

This Chapter traces the blossoming o f Indian travel writing. It traces

how there was a further growth in Indian travel writing from the 1930s to the

1960s. Since Rahul Sankrityayan’s oeuvre defines Indian travel writing o f this

period by its sheer bulk, variety and vision, this Chapter begins with a brief

discussion o f his contribution to Indian travel writing o f this period.

29
 in the first section o f this Chapter the nation m otif and romantic self,

are seen to be continuing in their presence in Kakasaheb Kalelkar’s travel book

Jeevanleela (1958). A distinct literariness seen in this book is duly underscored

in this Chapter.

The thematic m otif in Jeevanleela shifts from self to real life issues that

had begun to confront the sensibilities o f individuals o f the new bom nation.

Ravindra Kelekar’s Himalayant (1976) has been discussed as a representative

text that shows a transition from the romantic patriotic nation theme to a

realistic concern about one’s identity in the post independence age. With the

help o f this travel text, it has been possible to argue in this chapter, how the

issue o f identity gradually became the dominant theme o f the travel book o f

this era.

Subsequent texts written in the 1960s like P. L.Deshpande’s Purvrang

(1963) and R.K N arayan’ s MDD{ 1964) have been also discussed in this

Chapter. They are mainly analysed as dealing with the post-colonial theme of

identity consciousness where issues like cultural aping are discussed.

Since generically the travel book evolves steadily in the 1960s, and

writers are seen to discuss the nature o f their travel books in the prefaces and

forewords to their books, this Chapter duly analyses literary qualities that

contribute towards its growth like setting, dialogue and characterization that

blossomed in Deshpande’s and Narayan’s travel books.

Chapter Five; Contemporary Voice of Indian Travel writing:

This Chapter traces the contemporary (post 1980s) voice o f Indian travel

30
 writing. Five representative travel books have been selected for study here.

They are Vikram Seth’s FHL (1983), Am itav Ghosh’s IAAL (1992) (English),

Datta Naik’s KTK (1995), Meena Prabhu’s Dakshinrang (1999) and Pico Iyer’s

SAD (2004).

Unlike the early post independence traveller’s identity conscious voice,

this contemporary voice is assertive and confident. The issue of a national,

parochial or any confining identity has taken a backseat now. The post­

colonial ‘se lf has been transformed into a cosmopolitan one as a consequence

of the globalised w orld that the travelling s e lf happens to inhabit and trot.

Although, a concern, even pride for the nation still remains present in the travel

books o f this age, the authorial horizon has noticeably widened to include the

entire world in its purview.

Meena Prabhu’s text has been discussed as a link text that shows a

transition from the post colonial theme o f identity to the cosmopolitan outlook

of the global Indian, in the contemporary age. By comparing this text to

P.L.Deshpande’s Purvrang, it has been possible to argue how a continuum o f

travel genre o f the 60s is noticeable in this book.

Since the primary focus of this Chapter has been to test the hypothesis

regarding the difference between native and diasporic travel books, terms such

as the ‘diaspora’ and ‘diasporic travel w riting’, the ‘native’ and ‘native travel

writing’ are defined. In the context o f the travel genre, it has been possible to

identify the concept o f ‘hom e’ as the distinguishing characteristic between the

two groups. Since ‘hom e’ for the diasporic writer, is problematised, whether

31
 there was any difference between their respective affiliations to ‘home’ has

been taken up as a point o f discussion.

Generic evolution o f travel writing observed in the contemporary travel

books has also been discussed in this Chapter. A trend towards

experimentation has been observed in the contemporary travel books where

the travel genre becom es a formidable literary experiment in form and

technique. In a way the travel genre now justifies its description as a liminal

genre in more than one sense o f the term.

Chapter Six: General Conclusion

The concluding Chapter primarily re-examines the viability of the

hypotheses. It begins by presenting the findings o f each chapter. It also restates

and establishes the generic identity o f travel writing. It goes over the

conclusion o f each chapter to see if collaterally the texts could be seen as

Indian ‘Voices o f Transit’.

1.13. A note on selection of texts and chapterization:

Though the texts are divided chronologically, these divisions are not all

exclusive and Indian travel writing should not be seen in terms of these rigid

categories. The period and their thematic import is only a convenient temporal

framework. Moreover, the authorial sensibility is shaped by the socio- political

temperament o f an era and its impact cannot be wished away with the passage

of time. A pertinent example of this is Ravindra Kelekar’s travel book

Himalayant. Although, the text was published in the 1970s, it represents the

thematic import o f the nationalistic and patriotic fervour characteristic o f the

32
 early twenties and thirties. Kelekar’s home state, Goa, a part o f India, was not

liberated at the time o f writing this book, unlike the rest o f the country. Hence,

the theme of identity consciousness though present, is not distinct as in the

travel books of the 1960s by R. K. Narayan and P.L.Deshpande. The main

theme is patriotism and commitment to nation building in the line of Kalelkar

or Vivekananda’s text. This is evidence o f the fact that political freedom is

essential for the authorial sensibility to feel free of political compulsions to

move to concerns o f identity consciousness.

The chronological aspect o f this study gives us a sense of generic

continuity, while experimentation unfolds new modes towards growth; the

socio-political temperament that moulds the authorial sensibility shapes the

genre. The texts had been selected not only because they were seen as

representative o f the period, but for the relevance they hold to the central

arguments and basic hypothesis o f this thesis. Hence, though the texts have

been clubbed within a period-related temporal grouping, the individual

thematic focus of the texts, and their distinct formative features, have been of

primary concern to this study.

1.14. Conclusion:

The study thus, intends to examine the perspective o f the Indian travel

writer on both the west as well as the east. This articulation, as the thesis would

unravel, is significant since it covers a reasonably wide array of locales

scattered across the globe, a wide ranging period, and a broad spectrum o f

language cultures. In addition, Travel writing as a genre uses a variety o f

33
narrative forms and modes such as the epistolary, diary, memoir and the

autobiography. It is due to this flexible nature that it can be hypothetically

considered as a liminal genre. Because o f this multifarious identity its potential

value as a multidimensional discourse is vital.

34