with occupation of territories in Asia, Africa, America, Australia and the far East. The example of Ernesto Che Guevara is a typical example Editorial of traveling for the cause of ideology and revolution. Just as travel attracted people ,travel accounts too became popular Travel Writing: Annals of Infinity writing. Not just travelogues but other forms of literature too have a Journey has been a popular metaphor of life. In the eternal time the strong imprint of journeys undertaken. The picaresque novel is a form space is also infinite. This leads to an unending movement visible in in which the protagonist himself is on the move. Besides fiction, the universe in the form of the revolution of the earth and rotating of poetry too, is abundant in reflections on places visited by the poet. The stars and planets in their orbits. “One who moves, survives, the other entire movement of Romantic revival is devoted to describing the who is static starves” goes the proverb in Rajasthan. Time has proved beauty of nature, for which William Wordsworth, S.T. Coleridge and it again and again. Those who traveled gathered knowledge, those who Dorothy did travel hundreds of kilometers. did not remained ignorant. The metaphysical self is on the journey Travel accounts of Chinese travellers Fahiean, Huentsang, Egytian Ibn from the divine to the earthly and back. Going back is liberation. Batuta, British Colonel James Tod, French Bernier, Italian Manuchhii Getting entangled in the attractions on the way is slavery. Yet the etc. have been used as sources of history too. The autobiography of journey has its own charm. Many travel to reach somewhere. Many noted poet Harivansh Rai Bachchan is divided into four parts, one of others travel for its own pleasure. these being “Basere Se Dur”. It is interesting to see that not just in this Movement from the West to the East resulted in generations of work, in several other writings too, the travelogue and autobiography conflict. More so, the lack of movement from the North to South get interspersed. The question of travel writing being treated as serious created gulf between the dark and the fair. First was the case of literature or not has been debated a lot. Questions are raised about its domination and a sense of superiority while the second resulted into being a genre of literature. How does a piece of travel literature differ lack of communication. The southern parts of the world were perhaps from a travel guide? Can travel writing perform any serious purpose? left to themselves for long till the northerners saw a scope of usurping Does it do anything other than passing on information and impressions the resources available in such abundance. about places and people? Can there be something like an aesthetics of travel writing? How is it different from diary, letter, reportage and Religion has been a motivating factor for long journeys. Visiting itinerary? Does travel writing demand a use of a specific diction, form shrines of one's faith at least once in a life time was considered holy. and style? Can it be used for any pedagogic purpose? Can it provide a Islam gives a special importance to Haj. So does Hinduism, in which catharsis just as a tragedy does to the reader? the “Char Dham” visit is seen as some kind of a fulfilment of religious obligation. In Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales the Some of these questions are addressed in this issue of the Journal. pilgrims were going to the cathedral at Canterbury. Jainism is a faith in Everything cannot be answered in any one publication. In fact, this is a which the Acaryas are always on move. Except for the Chaturmas i.e. publication of research papers which intend to raise more questions the four months of monsoon they keep on traveling from one place to than answer them. Therefore this issue may disturb you with many another, stay in at one place for just a day or two. The followers too more questions than the questions to which answers are attempted. have a reason to travel to have theirdarshan. There are several I am grateful to Prof. A.K. Singh who permitted us to publish his key shrines where people reach walking down all the way. The entire note address. We have transcribed it so there could be some lapses in Bhakti movement was carried forward by traveling saints, seers and it. I seek his pardon. The ideas expressed in articles published in this poets. Politics too, encouraged travel. The mythical “Ashvamegh” was issue are those of the authors. They owe all credit. If there are any but an excuse to expand the territory by traveling to peripheral regions. mistakes, it is our fault. Please convey your valuable suggestions and Alexander's conquest of the East and Napolean Bonaparte's observations so that we can make the journal better. expeditions in Europe are similar examples. The Spaniards, Portugese, st French, Dutch and above all the British moved out for trade but ended 21 October, 2014 Dr. Anant Dadheech Guest Editor CONTENTS 17. William Dalrymple'sIn Xanadu: A Quest: A Post Colonial Perspective – Mukta Sharma 125 18. Western vis-a-vis Oriental Travelogues-The Chinese Community in India –Pankaj Vyas and Mehzbeen Sadriwala 131 1. Right from the womb of mother till sinking into the earth human 19.An Area of Darkness: India as seen by V.S. Naipaul – Rekha life is a consistent journey – A K Singh 1 Tiwari 138 2. Travel Writing, Woman and Empire: A Study of Fanny Parkes' 20. Travel Writing and Ideology – H. S. Chandalia 149 Travelogue – Akhilesh Kumar 6 21. Philosophy of Change through Travel – Payod Joshi 159 3. Elements of criticism in Gulliver's travelogue: An Evaluation – 22. Travel Theatre: At a Glance – Manish Ranjan 168 Divyaprakash Sharma 15 23. How Many? Traumatic Memories and Fractured Present – 4. Travel Literature Through the Ages – Divyeshkumar D. Bhatt 23 Kshamata Chaudhary 174 5. Reflection of Tibet's Traditions in Rahul Sankrityayan's Meri 24. A Paean to Travel Literature Dedicated to M.S.Y. Tibet Yatra – Gautam Sharma 33 – L. S. Rathore 181 6. Travel Literature: A pedagogical tool in foreign language Our Contributors 183 learning with special reference to French writer “Montesquieu” in “Persian letters” – Jaivardhan Singh Rathore 38 7. Major Travel Writers of India – Kiran Deshwal 46 8. Writing Travelogue through Composition – Krati Sharma 52 9. Contextualizing the Past Through A Probing Travelogue: Black Lamb and Grey Falcon – Manisha Sharma 56 10. Mark Tully'sNo Full Stops in India: A Study of Colonial Hangover – Narsingh Jangra 61 11. Changing Poetics of Travel Literature: Author to Reader – Rajpal 70 12. Travel Writing and the Medieval Ages-Ibn Battuta – Rukhsana Saifee 83 13. The Eternal Journey of Krishna: Revisiting the Past and Exploring the Present – Sarita Chanwaria and Mamta Chanwaria 89 14. Travelogue as History : A Reading of Oliver Balch's India Rising – Shalini Misra 95 15. Travelogue: A Mirror to An Underlying Journey – Shruti Jain 109 16. Swami Vivekananda's Travel to America: A Saga of Resistance, Representation and Reformation – Subhashis Banerjee and Taw Azu 118 Journal of Rajasthan Association for Studies in English10: 1-5 (2014) 2 A K Singh

people travel for different objectives. But travel literature comes into existence when human existence gets into action. When human Right from the womb of mother till sinking into existence begins to flow and takes a certain form. And when that the earth human life is a consistent journey flow is in action in the form of language I prefer to use the term travel discourse. So travel discourse comes into existence whenever human existence is in the state of motion. So when human beings use A K Singh to move the consequence is Travel Literature or Travel Discourse. The concept of travel discourse is important because it goes beyond Distinguished Guests and Dear Students, written or printed world because discourse is language in action, and I can offer nothing but my salutations to Prof. SN Joshi who has been language in action can be what is oral, written or printed or even behind this journey of RASE. It is because of his zeal that the unstated, uncaptured by language. Association has been moving forward and it would be carried to new So discourse covers a larger category and therefore in a place like heights in the times to come. It is very difficult to sustain the Rajasthan when people travel extensively the important thing is that association of teachers .Because teachers have learnt from life we have to think is that when we discuss travel literature, or sciences to question everything and not to follow what they preach. whenever we shall consider travel discourse we have to take note of It is the democracy of this profession and I also include myself in large amount of oral discourse that might not be available in our this community. This becomes instrumental to the growth of the books. Second part I want to submit is that travelling is seeing; so associations and organizations and to the kind of works which are travel discourse is about seeing and living that seeing. And seeing is initiated despite all the harsh realities of life. I offer all my not a one way activity but it is a multi-faceted activity. For instance I salutations and I mean that. I wish that you will give more see you and when I am seeing you, you also see me. And when you opportunities to people like me to come and get educated with these see me then I see myself being seen by you. And all these three events. activities take place in travel. This can be understood by taking an I want to underline the concept of self-education through colleagues example of a tourist or a traveller. A tourist sees what he was to see who are sitting this side of the dais or that side. I feel very excited and a traveller sees what is to be seen and sees what he might think when I was told about the topic because the academic world, the of seeing. Traveller lives what he sees and living is the basic human seminar world is engrossed with so many difficult topics and the self instinct of curiosity. Therefore if you look at from crusades to departed forms like Travel Literature are not discussed the way in colonization even before or after that, even the exteriority of travel which they should be. There are people who question the existence discourse or interiority of travel discourse, are governed by seeing as of travel literature as a form. Against all these debates the fact is that a metaphor. Travel discourse is a discourse of seeing. Something whenever there has been a large escape, movement of human beings Buddha states after every four five lines in his preaching. He says, individually or collectively rich corpus of knowledge has come into Kkukfe p Ik'pkfe] Ik'pkfepKkukfe that I know and I see because existence. There must have been different logics for this movement. whatever I am seeing I know and I know because I am seeing that. In People of Marwar have moved to different corners of the world for this way every traveller lives the canon of Buddha. By travelling you means of livelihood. The Old Testament shows that Parsis had to retain power and love. It is evident that all human discourses revolve leave their lands looking to the political reasons. Causes are so around these two discourses; the discourse of power and discourse of many; they are either, political, ideological or economical. Many love. Travelling is nothing but you live what you are. It allows you Right from the womb of mother till sinking... 3 4 A K Singh an alternation that is needed for creativity, for thinking about destination is beyond all destinations. He is of the view that there is yourself. But the problem is we are too crowded by knowledge of the nothing in this world except the passion of travel in life. That is why people around us; we are too narcissistic about ourselves; we think travel in life is quite important. It is in this context we have to see too much about ourselves. Travel makes you modest and it takes note travel discourse constructed all over the world. Different people in of the existence of others. And I think the people who write different ways have constructed it. And if this RASE is doing travelogues or people I should say who construct travel discourses something on travel literature then there is a need to have some are not only rich and repository of knowledge but at the same time historiography of travel discourse. We find the construction of they are the meditations on human existence. travelogues even from the pre historic times. I want to refer to the first paradigm I am because I exist and nomadic life which fosters So my dear critics of literature please rethink about travel discourse travel life. The metaphysical aspect of this living became clear in the because travellers have given a definite and a new direction to Greek society as well as in the Indian society. And there you had the human civilization in different parts of the world. I will take the term principle likepjSosfr pjSosfr . In Indian context all these sages and seers very briefly so that some of you may raise questions and carry forward this debate. Two three things that I wish to submit is that the are found as travellers. All the great cultural heroes of this period entire human civilization revolves around a few mantras or sutras, have been travellers. You take the case of Ram; you take the case of mottos, or formulas. The point is that what are these basic great characters in Mahabharata. What are they doing? What are they paradigms? Very briefly… one paradigm has been I am because I looking forward? For education Ram has to go outside. For 14 years exist. Second paradigm is I am because I believe. If you do not he has to go to the forest. And this travel and journey, this exile is a believe then you are persecuted. Third paradigm is I think therefore I journey into learning. I often share it with my friends that in his am. Entire modernistic discourse revolves around this questioning. exile the most beautiful thing of Ram's character is that in 14 years at Here we have to take note of Anver Babu, born in 1930, whose no quantum of time he complaints about his step mother Kaikay. centenary we are celebrating, says, in one of his essays which is Because we live in the culture of complaints. But during his travel he often neglected, that I revolt therefore we are. Many people say that does not stay at one place. He goes to Agastya; he goes to Valmiki . his grammar is incorrect. But the statement should be read in its And all these seers belong to different schools of thoughts. Here the context. Anver Babu's explanation is that If I revolt I do not revolt context is of Valmiki Ramayan. On his exile he comes across with an for myself.I revolt for my people and if I exist and my people do not inquisitive fellow in some of the scriptures who keeps on asking the exist then that revolt is of no use. Next paradigm is I am what I have. question that how I should live my life. Innocent people say that Here what I have does not refer to what I consume .Another follow what the shastras and the scriptures say. For the better answer important paradigm is or has been I am because I travel. I travel the fellow goes to Rishi Jabali. This is the advantage of travel which therefore I am. From mother's womb to the womb of the other birth helps one to remove the doubts .Rishi Jabali says,” Do not follow the “ekWa ds xHkZ ls i`Foh ekrk ds xHkZ rd ” between these two ends there is shastras because shastras have been constructed by clever people.'' Then he asks if I should not follow shastras what should be my nothing but travel. And that is why nobody could articulate it better guiding principles. On this Rishi Jabali says that experiences and than Iqbal. When he says, observations should be the best guiding principles. This is what we gj ,d eqdke ls vkxs eqdke gS rsjh see in the exile of Ram that he transforms his vanvas into jyanvas. g;krs tkSds lQ+j ds flok dqN vkSj ughA The Buddhist period abounds in travel. Buddha used to travel with It was the great philosopher Guetenburg who said that your his disciples through three routes; northern, western and the Right from the womb of mother till sinking... 5 Journal of Rajasthan Association for Studies in English10: 6-14 (2014) southern. In that time travel and translation also went hand in hand on account of movement from one place to another following the diversity of languages. Travel Writing, Woman and Empire: After Buddhism travellers came from the western and northern parts A Study of Fanny Parkes' Travelogue of India. And around 12 century we find Bulleshah. We also find Amir Khushro in 13 century. Entire Supphist movement is brought to Akhilesh Kumar India by travellers. After Buddhism the greatest cultural movement in the whole world; the greatest and the longest is the Bhakti It is human nature to categorize things and create (in) visible movement and it was solely a movement of travellers. We find a boundaries among them. We seldom remove or come out from these good number of acharyas, bhaktas, and saints of low castes who kept walls and keep on celebrating difference that so and so person or so on travelling just to spread the message of love, affection, and and so text or so and so thing is different from so and so person or so humanity through their compositions. It formed a significant travel and so text or so and so thing. For instance Indians are different from discourse which included written, oral, dance and etc. That is why Americans or Australians. Hindus are different from Muslims, man is the most inter disciplinary discourse is the travel discourse of Bhakti different from woman. In the same manner, drama is different from movement. novel, poetry is different from prose, fiction is different from non- fiction etc. Man has made different compartments for each and every And from Bhakti movement to Indian renaissance even to the thing. In recognizing dissimilarities one forgets or seems to ignore freedom movement we find a great tradition of travel which similarities of things. If one approaches things from this angle, then contributed to and affected society and culture in various ways. In one will notice nothing is different. Every person is a human being the present age of globalization driven by information technology I irrespective of his caste, colour, creed, identity, nationality, race, do not know to what extent IT devices more particularly fast modes religion and sex. In the same manner, all genres of literature deal of travel and transportation are affecting the tradition of travel. These with emotions, feelings, observations, experiences, thoughts and fast modes of travel kill the diversity of language. Problem is when ideas. If these things are present in every genre of literature why then you travel by air from one point to another you fly over so many we categorize literature in different and hierarchical genres. If languages that one is not required to enter the domain of other thought is body and medium is dress, Why do we give more languages and other cultures. Hence we have to think and consider of importance to thing which is less important? all such hazards which are posing serious concerns to this tradition of Let us confine ourselves to and stop on the point that all arts are travel. imitation. As moving beyond that will again create differences and (The key note speech delivered by Prof. A.K. Singh in the Inaugural with difference comes hierarchy which is the root of all problems. To Ceremony of the xth Annual Conference ofRASE on Traditions Shelley everything is poetry. In his own words,” Poetry is indeed and Transformations in Travel Literature held at M.L.V. something divine. It is at once the centre and circumference of Government College, Bhilawara from 16th to 17 th December, 2013. knowledge; it is that which comprehends all…and that to which This speech has been transcribed by Dr. Anant Dadhich for the all…must be referred. It is at the same time the root of all other journal of RASE) systems of thought” (Shelley 250). D. H. Lawrence calls the Bible and Shakespeare's works novel. To quote his words, “The Bible—but all the Bible—and Homer, and Shakespeare: these are the supreme Travel Writing, Woman and Empire: A Study of Fanny Parkes' Travelogue 7 8 Akhilesh Kumar old novel” (Lawrence 289). Let us put whole knowledge, thinking social science, anthropology and talks about day to day happenings, and reasoning aside and begin a movement of calling everything art. economic, political and environmental problems. A similarity may be So, travel writing should not be considered inferior, second rate and drawn between travel writing and translation. The creators of both trivial genre or artistic piece. In the present paper, an attempt has arts work for target readers try to understand different cultures, been made to define travel writing, to examine problems faced by a undertake daunting task, suffer from the charge of infidelity and have woman in writing a travel account, and to explore Fanny Parkes' almost same kind of (mis)fortune. travelogue. How Fanny Parkes approaches, examines and describes Travel and travel writing are challenging tasks and it becomes all the India and what is her role in empire building will also be assersed in more difficult for a lady because she has to face problems twice once the present paper. as a female traveller and then as a female writer. Travel and travel Writing about travel may be considered travel writing. But it is not so writing are both understood as masculine enterprise. In most of simple to define travel writing as appears from this simplistic societies freedom of movement and a taste for adventure have been definition of travel writing. First of all the adjective 'travel' placed associated with men rather than women. According to the patriarchal before writing creates difficulty. Oxford Advanced Learner's ideology of separate spheres, a female's proper and fit place is the Dictionary defines travel as, "An act or activity of going from one home. Women are therefore traditionally associated with immobility place to another" (Wehmeier1384). Stating differently to travel is to and with domesticity. Not only this female is generally considered make a journey. This movement through space might be an epic and maya i.e. temptation which is hindrance in achieving great tasks. For long journey taking a person from one nation to another, one instance Lakshman forbids his wife Urmila to accompany him in the continent to another continent, from one mountain to another or it exile of fourteen years. Even Ram is not ready to go with Sita. Sita (a might take place within the limits of traveller's immediate locality. female) has to struggle against the patriarchal taboos. In the Roman epicThe Aeneid , Aeneas must reject Dido, if he is to fulfill his Such definition of travel gives birth to innumerable questions. Are all imperial destiny. Homer'sOdyssey is about Odysseus who struggles forms of movement through space regarded as travel? What about a to return to his Ithacan home after the Trojan War, and of his son, trip to the local shop or store or a quick visit to one's neighbor or Telemachus, who set out in search of his father. On the other hand, movement from one room to another within one's house? If some the female character of the poem, Penelope, remains at home. It journeys are not classified as travel what then are the criteria of seems that Penelop's destiny is not to roam the globe but to remain a labeling some journeys as travel. These questions indicate that it is passive figure. not quite easy to define travel. Almost same kind of difficulty arises in giving definition(s) of travel writing. Whether it is written after Then numerous constraints and limitations are imposed upon woman actual journey or it can also be written after imaginary journey. Is it who wishes to travel. First of all they are not permitted to travel, if fictional or non-fictional? Are Conrad'sHeart of Darkness , Chaucer's they manage to travel, they are required to travel with chaperones or The Canterbury Tales, Swift's Gulliver's Travels and other texts of someone else. Before the late 17th century, it was perhaps right to same nature considered travelogues or these are different from travel say that women travelers were much less likely than male. Again this writing. Should one exclude these texts from travel writing as these is due to countless reasons for instance, limited educational are fictional? opportunities available to women, comparative less freedom to females and other household duties. It was only in the later part of Travel writing is a hybrid genre which embraces everything and it the 18th century that women such as Mary Wortley Montagu, Mary has complex relationship with other genres. That is why it is very Wollstonecraft, Ann Radcliffe and others began publishing difficult to tell where it begins/ends and other genres start. Rather its travelogues. It has been estimated that only about twenty such texts boundaries are very fuzzy. It borrows freely from history, geography, appeared in print before 1800. What might be the reasons behind so Travel Writing, Woman and Empire: A Study of Fanny Parkes' Travelogue 9 10 Akhilesh Kumar few female writers? Females have vastly traveled but fail to publish on the part of females that they are entering and have entered into their travel accounts. Why? Do they lack writing abilities? Or that field which was largely male dominated and difficult even for publishers did not allow them to grow or due to the lack of high males. One should not hesitate in saluting those (un)recorded seriousness their travel accounts were not fit for publishing. Only pioneers of this field who dared to step out from their homes and God knows what reality is. But for the present purpose Virginia struggled to travel and publish their travel accounts. Woolf's famous pronouncement seems appropriate. She holds," All I could do was to offer you an opinion upon one minor point a woman Fanny Parkes lived in India between 1822 and 1846. She was the must have money and a room of her own if she is to daughter of a colonial officer and came to India as the wife of a write…"(Woolf7-8). Even today when people talk of equality of minor civil servant. During her twenty four years' stay in India, she rights for females, woman empowerment, woman reservation, a lady traveled extensively and explored Indian custom and culture and has neither money nor freedom and privacy. She has to share her wrote a travelogue called Wanderings of a Pilgrim in Search of the room with her mother / father/ sister/some elderly figure before Picturesque, During Four-and-Twenty Years in the East; With marriage and after that with her husband. If she fights for a separate Revelations of Life in the Zenana (1850). But in the words of room either she could not get or for that she might have to pay a William Dalrymple, "It had no second edition…few have ever heavy price. As far as money is concerned, they might be in heard…read her" (Dalrymple 43). It is William Dalrymple who possession of money or they themselves earn good money but they revitalized Fanny Parkes by reproducing her travelogue as Begums, are seldom allowed to spend money according to their sweet will. Thugs and Englishmen: The Journals of Fanny Parkes . Every writer Even today, when we talk of the world as a 'global village' and when in writing of himself or herself writes about either himself/herself or there are numerous ways of transportation there are so many about other than himself/herself. Travel writer is not an exception. In challenges in traveling. Females are not safe even in their own a travel narrative either one finds self revelation or representation of houses, villages, cities and nations. How can one forget the gang other. This projection of other may be real. A writer may project the rapes, kidnappings and plundering of both foreign and native ladies other better or worse than the real. Indra Ghose holds, "The crux of at various places in India? These things are happening in the so the issue of travel writing seems to me to be the question: how do we called civilized world which has order, safety and law. constitute the other?" (Ghose, Women Travellers 6) Women's travel writing is criticized and accused of falsehood Studies and anthologies of women's travel writing show that women because the representations in the text do not fit in with a not only travel differently than men do, they write about their stereotypical conception of what a female can do. In the words of journey differently. In the words of Somdatta Mandal, “Thus, being Jane Gallop, "Our culture…has myth of woman as essentially a liar. brought up in the feminized space of domesticity, women travellers According to this tradition, woman spoke neither to enlighten with assumably had a different gaze than their male counterparts” philosophy or science, nor to give her word as the guarantee for (Mandal144). Just as the masculine tradition of travel seems to some joint enterprise: she spoke to deceive" (Quoted by Mills112). reflect public and professional concern, the feminine tradition Then there is disparity in the awards of male and female travel appears to fall into private and personal sphere. To quote the words writing. For instance since 1980 Annual Travel and Guide Book of Wollstonecraft: "Whilst men describe public life, British women Award is given to six males and one woman. Despite all these excel at observing the private, female space in the lands they visit patriarchal ideologies, social obstacles and hindrances, females have because of their innate domesticity…"(Quoted by Leask 203) accompanied their fathers, husbands, brothers and friends on Fanny Parkes also in her travelogue focuses on domestic life and has journeys. Religious pilgrimage and spiritual voyages also provide spent much ink in the portrayal of Indian Women from both Hindu ample opportunities to females. So it is an outstanding achievement and Muslim communities. Through presenting Indian woman she Travel Writing, Woman and Empire: A Study of Fanny Parkes' Travelogue 11 12 Akhilesh Kumar also throws light on English woman. Other male travel writers like the place, the remembrance of the fallen grandeur of the family of V.S.Naipual, Paul Theroux, William Dalrymple, and Mark Tully have the Emperor and that Asaf-khah, the father of Arjumund Banoo, the also projected the image of India in their travel accounts. But it is solemn echoes, the dim light, the beautiful architecture, the exquisite only Fanny Parkes' travel narrative which is more detailed as far as finish and delicacy of the whole… I could no more jest or indulge in projection of women is concerned. And Fanny Parkes is lucky also levity beneath the dome of the Taj, than I could in my prayers” (BTE because being a lady she could visit zenana i.e. female apartments 184-185). She derives pleasure even in the ruins of Delhi. which her male counterparts could not explore. She herself says,” “It is difficult to put women traveler under a single heading”, says This pleased me greatly; so few persons ever have an opportunity of Indira Ghose (Ghose2). As they are feminist, anti-feminist, proto- seeing native ladies" (BTE 241). It is not Fanny Parkes alone who feminist, colonial and anti-colonial. It is also difficult to tell which narrates the life of Indian female but we have other characters who kind of relations they have with colonialism and their role in empire reveal the life of Indian female to us. That is why this text is an building is also not very clear. An interesting feature of the Britisher example of 'meta narrative'. The two characters who reveal the life of in the colonies is the fact that they are also critical of British rule Indian females to Fanny Parkes are Colonel Gardner and an themselves. E.M.Forster inA Passage to India paints the English anonymous male. In her travelogue Fanny Parkes mainly focuses on bureaucracy in India in dark colours, and disapproves of the upper class females i.e. begums and queens. She seldom talks about conventional ideas which his countrymen hold about empire. Fanny other females. She herself is aware of this fact as she says, “I heard Parkes also in her travel narrative offers a critique of Raj. There are that I was much blamed for visiting the Princess, it being supposed I many illustrations of it in the text. When she visits Hakim Menhdi's went for the sake of presents… I knew perfectly well: I went there shawl factory, she says, “Look at these shawls, how beautiful they for curiosity, not avarice… gold mohur….” (BTE313) are! If you wish to judge of an Indian shawl, shut your eyes and feel Fanny Parkes gets hurt by these remarks and she takes a decision of it; the touch is the test of a good one. Such shawls as these are not not visiting these places again. She says, “I was so much disgusted made at the present day in Kashmir; the English have spoiled the with the ill-natured remarks I had heard, I would not enter the place market” (BTE 250). She also questions the authority of the again” (BTE 314). Whatever may be the reasons of her visit to Governor-General when she comes to know that he has sold the begums but because of the 'ill-remarks' we are at loss. Her visits to Mootee Masjid and offered the Taj for sale but he could not sale the zenanas gave her opportunities of observing Indian culture and Taj because the price required has not been obtained. To quote from tradition. She reveals the marriage ceremonies, issue of plurality of the text: “If this be true, is it not shameful? The present king might as wives, patty quarrels of females, their dresses, their food, well sell the chapel of Henry VII in West Minister Abbey… By what exploitation of females by males, their confinement into four walls, authority does the Governor-General offer the Taj for sale?” bed rooms of queens and many more things about Indian females. (BTE121) Females who are described in detail are Sultana Boa, Mulka The British Empire was a man's world. At every level, men ran the Zumanee, Humanee Begum, Shubkeah Begum, begum of Colonel colonies. Colonial texts also reveal this fact. That may be A Passage Gardner, Baiza Bai and Gaja Raja. to India, Heart of the Darkness or The Heart of the Matter all are Fanny Parkes' travelogue shows that she is in love with India and she male centered. In Forster'sA Passage to India , women are not so is very eager to see India. She appreciates India's monuments and much active participants in the upkeep of the empire. But they are buildings. She also likes Indian music and learns Urdu. She has great mere fringe and decorative figures. Mrs. Moore and Adela have not reverence for the Taj. She beautifully conveys her respect for the Taj: the status and power which Ronny Heaslop and other males have. “I cannot enter the Taj without feelings of devotion: the sacredness of The Heart of the Matterrevolves around Scobie. In Heart of Travel Writing, Woman and Empire: A Study of Fanny Parkes' Travelogue 13 14 Akhilesh Kumar

Darkness, women are hard to come by at the centre. Marlow, the Works cited protagonist of the text says, “She is out of it completely. They the Boehmer, Elleke.Colonial and Post colonial Literature. Oxford: Oxford women, I mean are out of it should be out of it” (Conrad 72). Perhaps UP, 2005. Print. this is role of women in colonization. But this is Whiteman's Conrad, Joseph.Heart of Darkness . New Delhi: Oxford UP, 2001. Print. understanding of their females. It will be more interesting where and Dalrymple, William. "Porous Boundaries and Cultural Crossover: Fanny how female puts themselves. Plus woman at home is different from Parkes and 'Going Native'."Travel Writing and the Empire . Ed. woman on the road. What T. S. Eliot says about the perfect artist, can Sachidananda Mohanty. New Delhi: Katha, 2003. Print. as well be said about woman-traveller, “…the more perfect the artist, Eliot, T.S.Selected Essays. Londson: Faber and Faber, 1951. Print. the more completely separate in him will be the man who suffers and Ghose, Indira. Ed.Memsahibs Abroad : Writings by Women Travellers in the mind which creates….” (Eliot 18) Nineteenth Century India, New Delhi : Oxford UP, 1998. Print. Females should not be considered outside the colonial enterprise. ---.Women Travellers in Colonial India : The Power of the Female Gaze . One should not forget that it is Marlow's aunt who makes his voyage New Delhi: Oxford UP, 2000. Print. th possible. Actually in the words of Indra Ghose, “Women are Lawrence, D.H. “Why the Novel Matters”. English critical Texts: 16 th colonized by gender, but colonizers by race” (Ghose, Women Century to 20 Century. Eds. D.J.Enright and Ernest De Chickera. Travellers 5). So, Fanny's criticism of Raj should not be Delhi: Oxford UP, 1979. Print. misunderstood. She is the product of British Empire and very much Leask, Nigel.Curiosity and the Aesthetics of Travel Writing 1770-1840 . in the side of colonizers. It is evident from her dark portrayal of Oxford : Oxford UP, 2002. Print. India. To her Indian males are thugs, thieves, superstitious, Mandal, Somdatta. Ed.Indian Travel Narratives . Jaipur: Rawat, 2010. uncivilized, lazy and dishonest. To quote from the text: “We have Print. had much annoyance from the servants stealing all sorts of little Mills, Sara.Discourse of Difference : An Analysis of Women's Travel Writing things as also wine” (BTE 64). At another place, she says, “The and Colonialism. London: Routledge, 1991. Print. idleness of the natives is excessive” (BTE 18). She does not find Parkes, Fanny. Begums, Thugs and Englishmen: The Journal of Fanny Indian weather very fine. Even Indian fruits are inferior to the Parkes. Selected by William Dalrymple. New Delhi: Penguin, 2003. European fruit. Mount Blanc is superior to Indian mountains. Print. All textual references are also from this edition of the text and page numbers are given in parenthesis with abbreviation BTE. “Always with the reference to the superiority of an expanding Shelley, P. B.”A Defence of Poetry”. English critical Texts : 16th Century to Europe”, in the words of Elleke Boehmer, “colonized peoples were th represented as lesser: less human, less civilized, as child or savage, 20 Century. Eds. D.J.Enright and Ernest De Chickera. Delhi: Oxford UP, 1979. Print. wild man, animal or headless mess.” (Boehmer 76) Wehmeier, Sally and Ashaby Michael. Eds. Oxford Advanced Learner's A study of Fanny Parkes' travelogue shows the scope, potential, Dictionary. VIth Edition, Oxford: Oxford UP, 2000. Print. hybrid nature, challenges and limitations of the genre. The problems Woolf, Virginia.A Room of One's Own. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1929. faced by her as a traveler are also scattered here and there in the text. Print. The ambivalent relation of females with empire can also be seen in both her praise and criticism of the Raj. The ambiguous projection of India also creates difficulty in putting her travelogue under a single heading. Though she tries her level best to understand India but she fails to get the essence of India partly because of her brief sojourn and to some extant because of linguistic and cultural taboos. Journal of Rajasthan Association for Studies in English10: 15-22 (2014) 16 Divyaprakash Sharma

scientists, philosophers, and Englishmen of eighteenth century England. He states that “misanthropy” is the product of one of the two world views: Elements of criticism in Gulliver's travelogue: An Evaluation 1) The Pure Cynic or Misanthropist has no faith in human nature and has given up on any notion of ideals. Divyaprakash Sharma 2) The “Burned” or Disillusioned Idealist's misanthropy arises out of disappointment in humankind. Travel writing is not a new genre for English literary studies but Swift stands for the second type of misanthropist that exhibits more Swift added a new taste to this genre and authored the book, bile as he is constantly frustrated by what men do as opposed to what Gulliver's Travels, which is seemingly childish but beholds a great they ought to do and Gulliver's Travels is arguably his greatest satiric satirical meaning in it. The book has enjoyed a double life, as a light attempt to humiliate or embarrassment for their vices by constantly hearted children's classic and as the morose and misanthropic vision distinguishing between how man behaves in a variety of situations. of a gloomy dean. Here, he describes a catalogue of morals. Pride is what makes Some high minded critics regret this state of affairs believing that the possible man to convince himself into the belief that he is virtuous existence of a truncated children's version demeans the serious when, actually he has not developed his reason, and his virtue is an meaning of the work. On the contrary, the childlike quality of the illusion for himself. Most markable are the ways in which the story performs an important function, quite apart from constituting structure and choice of metaphor serve Swift's purpose, a discussion one of the book's main attractions to a wide body of readers. of some of his most salient attacks on politics, religion, and other elements of society, particularly his critique on the human nature. The book is divided between four parts which represent four Gulliver's Travels succeeds in this goal brilliantly. different voyages to different places. The first part is a satire on six inch Lilliputians who represent the English politics. The second book Swift's satire is merely the weapon of exaggeration, which is the only is a satire against the Brobdingnagians, who are sixty feet in height one facet of his satiric method. Swift uses mock seriousness and and represent the English King, the third one is a satire on theoretical understatement; he parodies and burlesques; he presents a virtue and intellectuals represented by laputans and the fourth and concluding then turns it into a vice. The form and structure of the whole work part is the bitterest satire, aimed at mankind, represented by Yahoos. enhanced Swift's purpose, as did the specific metaphors in each of In general Wars, laws–lawyers and lust for gold is satirized, the four voyages. Besides science, Swift debunks the whole simultaneously. sentimental attitude surrounding children. At birth, for instance, Lilliputian children were “wisely” taken from their parents and given The work is considered either innocent or ironic. In fact, it is neither to the State to rear. In an earlier satire (A Modest Proposal), he had innocent nor precisely ironic. It is a testimony to swift's ability to proposed that the very poor in Ireland sell their children to the convey his sharpest criticisms of the world in a mode that is English as gourmet food. predominantly comic. Swift presentsGulliver's Travels in the genuine form of the popular Frankly speaking, it is a Moral Satire by Swift in the form of a travelogues of the time. We are told that Gulliver, the chief character travelogue, which was written during an era of change known as the is a seaman, first in the capacity of a ship's surgeon, then as the Reformation Period. Chiefly, it was written as an indictment, and it captain of several ships. Swift creates a realistic framework by was most popular among those who were indicted-that is, politicians, incorporating nautical jargon, descriptive detail that is related in a Elements of criticism in Gulliver's travelogue: An Evaluation 17 18 Divyaprakash Sharma

“factual, ship's-log” style, and repeated claims by Gulliver, in his their history. The Lilliputians, one of the forms of political satire, are narrative. the embodiment of England of the time period. The Lilliputians are There is a brilliant continuity in the four books without any breach. small people who control Gulliver through means of threats. They do not interrupt his voyage; while satire is growing bitter and “…when in an instant I felt above a hundred arrows discharged into bitter as the journey progresses. All the four books are presented in a my left hand, which pricked my like so many needles; and besides parallel way so that voyages 1 and 2 focus on criticism of various they shot another flight into the air, as we do bombs in Europe” aspects of English society at the time, and man within this society, (Swift, 24). while voyages 3 and 4 are more preoccupied with human nature itself. The overall structure also works like a kind of spiritual This example of comparing the political situation in Europe at the teaching of self-realization that begins from outside the man and time to the story is further demonstrated by using Gulliver against works through the voyages to the most internal conscience of the the Blefescan nation, much like a European nation would use a self. It is the center of the moral scruple of the whole work. politically strong nation against the other to fulfill its interest. Another way that Swift uses satire against the society of the time is Further, Gulliver reports that public officials in Lilliput are chosen by through the medium of science. During the Reformation period, their morals and not by their ability. In this instance Swift is not people were beginning to questions superstitions and theories by saying that people with good ability suited for the job should not be using science to explain things. On his voyage to Lagodo, he considered, but rather pointing out that people with bad morals too emphasizes on the multiple scientists engaging in trivial experiments often gain public office. In the same chapter he points out that such as trying to extract sunlight from a cucumber. By this passage, parents are not allowed to rear their own children in Lilliput, but by Swift means to attach the scientific community's need to analyze making this point Swift might be saying that parents in England do everything, as they did at that time, mainly to prove superstitions and not treat their children rationally rather than it would solve any religious worries wrong. The choice of metaphor in each voyage problems to move the upbringing from the parents. Gulliver also serves more particularly the various points of Swift's satiric vision. describes the Emperor of Lilliput as an impressive leader and a The effect of reducing the scale of life in Lilliput is to strip human successful, astounding man. The irony here is pointed at George I, affairs of their self-imposed grandeur. Rank, politics, international King of England, who lacks the qualities seen in the six-inch tall war, lose all of their significance. Emperor. Lilliputians have the same faults in other instances. This is evident when the Emperor holds a speech about his great leniency And where the Liiliputians highlight the pettiness of human pride and tenderness when he is about to do something cruel, like invading and pretensions, the relative size of the Brobdingnagians, who do the kingdom of Blefuscu, and in the instance when he orders exemplify some positive qualities, also highlights the grossness of Gulliver's eyes to be plucked out. The Brobdingnagians do not over the human form and habits, thus satirizing pride in the human form complicate their governmental system and the King is most and appearance. In the relation of the activities of the Grand concerned about common sense and reason. For example, none of Academy of Lagado, Swift satirizes the dangers and wastefulness of their laws are written in more than twenty-two words in order to be pride in human reason uninformed by common sense. The final clear and precise. They seem to be simple people who like things choice of the Houyhnhnms as the representatives of perfect reason mostly the way they are, and dislike things like mysteries and unimpeded by irrationality or excessive emotion serves a dual role secrets, which surely accounts for how few books they have and how for Swift's satire. Animal imagery also supports a great cause.The small their libraries are. They have books on morality but their topic absurdity of a domestic animal exhibiting more “humanity” than mostly consists of how weak man is. Still they have quarrels and humans throws light on the defects of human nature in the form of wars like any other nation and there have been power struggles in the Yahoo, who look and act like humans stripped of higher reason. Elements of criticism in Gulliver's travelogue: An Evaluation 19 20 Divyaprakash Sharma

The pride in human nature as superior when compared to a “bestial” physical dimension to the King's judgment and enhances its veracity. nature is satirized sharply. Swift uses the Houyhnhnms (are not an In contrast, Brobdingnagian society has many things to recommend ideal of human nature) to show how reason uninformed by love, it such as excellence “in morality, history, poetry, and mathematics,” compassion, and empathy is also an inadequate method to deal with although Gulliver ironically laments that these are only applied to the the myriad aspects of the human situation. practical aspects of life and not used for abstractions. In reality, Swift like the Brobdingnagians, is also in favor of government and society Within this background, very little of human social behavior, based on common-sense. The supreme moment of ironical criticism pretensions, or societal institutions escape from Swift's disguised of European civilization occurs in Chapter seven when, after offering criticism. The rank and favor of the Lilliputian ministers being the secret of gun powder to the King and his subsequent horrified dependent on how high they can jump over a rope literally illustrates refusal, Gulliver declares the King to possess “narrow principles and this figurative point. Gulliver himself falls out of favor because he short views!” does not pander to the King's thirst for power. The two political parties being differentiated by the height of their heels points out The main focus of social criticism in the voyage to Laputa is on how little substantive difference there was between Whig and Tory, intellectuals- that is on scholars, philosophers, and scientists, who (or today between Democrat and Republican), and similarly, the often get lost in theoretical abstractions and conceptions to the religious differences about whether the Host was flesh or symbol is exclusion of the more pragmatic aspects of life, in direct contrast to reduced to the petty quarrel between the Big-Endians and the Small- the practical Brobdingnagians. It could be seen as Swift was Endians. Swift also highlights the pretensions of politics by satirizing “the strange experiments of the scientists of the Royal informing us of some of the laudable and novel ideals and practices Society”. The Laputians constantly worry about when the sun will of Lilliputian society; for instance rewarding those who obey the law, burn out and whether a comet will collide with the earth. The satire holding a breach of trust as the highest offense, and punishing false in Voyage three attacks the deficiency of common sense. accusers and ingratitude, but shows that, like humans, even the Lilliputians do not live up to their own standards when they exhibit Most of the criticism in the Voyage to the Houyhnhnms is directed at ingratitude for Gulliver's help and accuse him of high treason. human nature itself, but increasingly direct blows to the subjects of Of course, the perspective shifts in the second voyage, where war, (destruction clothed in the pretext of valour and patriotism), Gulliver finds himself in the same relation to the Brobdingnagians as lawyers, (social parasites ), and money, (the greed of a few is fed by the Lilliputians were to him, which not only leads to some different the labor and poverty of the many, as well as the relative uselessness kinds of satiric insights. Gulliver describes European civilization to and corruption of these privileged few). In addition, Swift makes Brobdingnag's King, including England's political and legal some very cogent observations on imperialism in the concluding institutions and how they work, as well as some of the personal chapter which points out the arrogance and self-deception of habits of the ruling class. Yet Gulliver subsequently confesses that he European nations when they claim to civilize, through brutality and cast this information in the most favorable light, the King still oppression, groups of indigenous people who were often mild and deduces that every strata of society and political power is infested harmless. The most ironic point occurs when the author disclaims with rampant corruption and dismissively concludes:- that this attack on imperialist countries does not include Britain, which history shows was equally as brutal as its European rivals and, “the bulk of your natives to be the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of in many cases, even more so, considering its Empire became at one the earth.” time the largest of any European country. Here implies the basic message of the first voyage but the attack here The main object of the satire in Gulliver's Travels is human nature is more direct. The relative size of the Brobdingnagians adds a itself, specifically Man's pride. Gulliver's character, as a satirical Elements of criticism in Gulliver's travelogue: An Evaluation 21 22 Divyaprakash Sharma device, serves Swift's ends by being a mouthpiece for some of it is clear Swift does not present Gulliver's comic and absurd Swift's ideals and criticisms. Thus, critiques on human nature are withdrawal from people as a viable solution. Instead, Swift wants us made through Gulliver's observations. Chapter seven of the first to be shocked out of the pride that allows us to deceive ourselves into Voyage, where Gulliver is informed that he is about to be indicted for thinking man is completely virtuous when he is not by experiencing, high treason by the Lilliputian Court, provides a satiric attack on with Gulliver, our own limitations without making Gulliver's final hypocrisy, ingratitude. Yet Gulliver, as well as we conclude that mistake. The solution to the human dilemma is not so simple as though these tiny creatures are aping human behavior, they are still Gulliver's rejection of humanity, and Swift's final success, in terms of not human. In the second voyage, both the human pride in physical stimulating response, is that, he leaves the application of his lessons appearance is attacked through Gulliver's perspective of the to the readers. Brobdingnagians. From Gulliver's theme of the excellence of Swift felt that humbling human pride, enabling a more honest self- mankind, begun in Chapter six, the episode concludes with the assessment, was absolutely vital to addressing the suffering and demonstration of inhumanity in man is predisposed to. injustice so prevalent in human life. Contrary to many who label The most interesting comments on the human condition is the Swift a misanthropist, Swift was a man who cared deeply about description of the immortal Struldbrugs in Voyage Three. Swift's humanity for that reason he produced a work like Gulliver's Travels. treatment of the subject of immortality is characteristically practical Weilding the scalpel of satire, Swift cuts through our self-deception and down to earth. In relating this episode, Swift affirms that we to our pride, the source of our moral denial and inertia. As we travel have much in common with the rest of earth's creatures; any superior with Gulliver through the voyages, Swift makes us see over our reason we may possess, and the pride we take in it, does not exempt pretensions, layer by layer, until he shows us what we are and us from the natural laws of death. In Book Three, Swift shows the defiance us to be better. To Swift, Man is a mixture of sense and possible perversions of reason in the doings at the Academy of nonsense; he had accomplished much but had fallen far short of what Lagado, and also shows its limitations in defending us from the he could have been and what he could have done. To sum up it can natural consequences of physical life. Here, he implies the be concluded that there is no need of correct statistics and figures to importance of a moral structure to human life; reason is not enough state the narration of the places which the writer has visited. One just and immortality would only make things worse. Book four seems to have to describe the experience in true words. Swift's journey is argue that reason is the one quality, when properly developed, that inner rather than in outer world and universal also. In the form of a can elevate man to his ultimate potential. But ironically it is the travelogue Swift continues to vex the world so that it might awaken horse-like Houyhnhnms that possess this perfect development of to the fact that humankind needs saving, but it has to save itself. reason, whereas the Yahoos, whom Gulliver most resembles, are Works cited primitive and bestial. Dekle, Mark. “Gulliver's Travels to the Screen, Giant and Tiny. July 2, Human nature is cut into two parts: The Houyhnhnms possess reason 2009. http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi? and benevolence, and selfish appetites and brutish awareness are left article=2927&context=etd Dec. 13, 2013. Web for the Yahoos. The analysis of the human form that took place in the Naeem, Muhammad. “Gulliver's Travels: A Critical Analysis”. Nov. 19, second voyage is now used to analyze the defects of man's moral 2010. http://neoenglishsystem.blogspot.in/2010/11/gullivers-travels- nature, and it is pride that prevents man from recognizing his flaws critical-analysis.html Dec. 13, 2013. Web and dealing with them. We are meant to be repulsed by the chilling “Swift's Moral Satire in Gulliver's Travels”http://mamdoca.blogs.uv.es/ calmness with which the Houyhnhnms accept death as described in swifts-moral-satire-in-gullivers-travels.13/12/2013. 05:30. Web Chapter nine as much as we are by the selfishness of the Yahoos, and Swift, Jonathan.Gulliver's travels . Londan: Penguin, 2012. Print. Journal of Rajasthan Association for Studies in English10: 23-32 (2014) 24 Divyeshkumar D. Bhatt

in the context to make a laborious journey.” In the ancient times the concept of travelling was not as smooth and comfortable as it is today as the swiftest means of travel during those days was riding a horse or camel which proved tiring and toilsome. Today we have Travel Literature Through the Ages shrift means of travel available with the help of which one can have breakfast in London, lunch in New York and dinner in Tokyo. The Divyeshkumar D. Bhatt developments in the travelling facilities have also contributed in the variety of purposes and motives to travel. Whereas in past people “We travel, initially, to lose ourselves; and we travel, next, travelled for some limited purposes such as that of trade and to find ourselves. We travel to open our hearts and eyes commerce, to make pilgrimage or on any political commissions, and learn more about the world than our newspapers will today persons travel with the spirits of adventures, artistic accommodate. We travel to bring what little we can, in sensibilities, business objectives, health and treatments, and our ignorance and knowledge, to those parts of the globe sometimes just for pleasures. whose riches are differently dispersed. And we travel, in From the initial phases, one of the motives behind travelling essence, to become young fools again - to slow time down activities has remained to widen the scope of knowledge and an and get taken in, and fall in love once more.” attempt to understand other people, their ways of life, approaches, Pico Iyer. beliefs and overall outlook to life in entirety. Basically such motives were driven by the curiosity to learn about the cultures and customs Travel is the vital breath in human activity. Human beings journey of other sets of societies. The remoteness of these cultures added the from place to place. It is a basic human desire to go round the places elements of enigmatic sensibilities too. In the ancient times beyond which arouse curiosity. Basically these places may consist of the trade and commerce and pilgrimage, sports and war activities were sights which hold religious significance, natural beautiful places, other big motives of travels. monuments and sites of ancient roots and historical grandeurs. A traveller is always anxious to exert himself to study and survey, to The excitement and the pleasure which one has experienced during investigate and learn, to find and observe the natural phenomenon one's travelling expeditions have always fascinated man to convey and human skills of the places and the people he visits. them to his fellow beings at Home. And the travellers with creative bent have produced great stuff of writings mainly focusing on the A basic question may here be raised, 'what makes people travel?' various and varied encounters and experiences of the writer on his There is always a wander-lust in man. He likes to go and see places travels. Since the writer views the things from his own view point, of which he has heard and perhaps he has not even heard of. But for travel narratives mediate between fact and fiction, autobiography and the wander-lust the new continent of America would not have been ethnography, combining a number of academic disciplines, literary discovered. The vast areas of the world have been discovered owing categories and social codes. They also raise issues concerning power to the exploring spirit of people who wanted to venture forth into the and self- perception, cultural representation as well as imagination. sea and discover places unknown, to see people and lands in the far off places. Ever since the dawn of history, this spirit of adventure, Early Travellers and Travel Accounts : trying to travel to know the unknown places, has been the fountain- Trade was a strong force for many travellers to undertake long spring of all future discoveries. journeys to distant lands. Then in the course of time it was fairly The very word 'Travel' has originated from the Latin root 'travalein' replaced by the urge to explore the unexplored and seek knowledge which meant “to toil, labour” thus the derivation may have occurred which other civilisations evolved in their own unique ways. Many Travel Literature Through the Ages 25 26 Divyeshkumar D. Bhatt great explorers spent many formidable years of their lives in search experienced something extraordinary'–lured the travel-story-tellers to of knowledge namely Vasco-de–Gama, Columbus, Alexander the attribute something magical in their accounts as they stayed assured great, Marco Polo, Huen-Tsang, Ibn Batuta, Gautam Buddha, Adi that whatever they would narrate would, without a bit of doubt, go Shankara, Swami Vivekananda and many more. In this way, Travel with ease among the people, rather it would attract them towards it. writing has flourished though the ages, and early travel accounts by “...authors played with the boundaries between eyewitness testimony, explorers and other travellers continue to be valued as a significant second-hand information, and outright invention, and readers were source of information about historical cultures and places. often unsure whether they were reading truth or fiction.” (Sherman, Stirring and Searching.) These traits of fake, fiction and inventions in Travel writing seems to have resulted from man's natural instinct to the travel accounts might have earned the entire volume of travel know and record the things from beyond his general surroundings. writing 'second rate' title in the realm of serious literature. Peter Hulme and Tim Young rightly put in the Introduction of Cambridge Companion to Travel Writing: “The traveller's tale is as Modern Approaches in Travel Writing : old as fiction itself: one of the very earliest extant stories, composed “To be honest, I view all stories as journeys. Journeys are in Egypt during the twelfth Dynasty, a thousand years before the the essential text of the human experience-the journey from Odyssey, tells of a shipwrecked sailor alone on the marvellous birth to death, from innocence to wisdom, from ignorance island.” to knowledge, from where we start to where we end. There William Sherman in his essay “Stirring and Searching” rightly is almost no piece of important writing-the Bible, the asserts that the historic motive of mapping the world and Odyssey, Chaucer, Ulysses-that isn't explicitly or implicitly documenting the routes in order to provide ease and direction to the the story of a journey. Even when I don't actually go travellers who would follow in their footsteps and fill in the gaps of anywhere for a particular story, the way I report is to geographical knowledge has been motive of travel writing. Bavin, immerse myself in something I usually know very little Columbus, Francis Drake, Richard Eden, Richard Haklute-were about, and what I experience is the journey toward a grasp some of the explorers who ventured to put on the paper the of what I've seen." unfathomable bounty of the world at the early stages. Another Susan Orlean analysis, Sherman gives us is, the 'Typology of Travel Writers' of the first two centuries. “The two centuries of Travel Writers”, he puts, (Introduction to My Kind of Place: Travel Stories from a Woman “...have sometimes been characterised as a period in which the Who's Been Everywhere. Random House, 2004)" Pilgrim gave way to merchants, the Explorers and the Although there is a consistent pattern of travel writing through the philosophers,... when Sir Thomas Palmer published his chart of centuries, travelogues and adventure narratives became extremely various kinds of travellers in 1606 he included preachers, postmen, popular during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with great soldiers and spies.” impetus provided to the realm through imperialism and colonization Almost all the records of early travels exhibit specific patterns of territories. The Western travellers ransacked the recesses of the showing all these explorations were based either on spiritual or on globe with their singular mission to explore the undiscovered parts of the commercial motives. And in turn, the textual representations the earthly planet. In the 20th century, travel related writings evolved enjoyed extreme popularity on account of people's basic fascination into several different categories, including a vast number of travel for getting the details of 'unknown' and this attraction of people and guidebook series, travel-related periodicals, and travel diaries, 'the gratitude generated in them for the Wanderer for having recordings of scientific and exploratory missions, adventure narratives, and semi-autobiographical accounts of personal travels. Travel Literature Through the Ages 27 28 Divyeshkumar D. Bhatt

The main trait behind the extreme popularity of this kind of the texts artists and men of letters who moulded their creativity into this was it served the reading public the elements of mystery, the pattern and produced fiction on travel during the eighteen century. imaginary adventures of the far and unknown regions. Defoe'sRobinson Crusoe (1719) enacts the adventures of the protagonist in isolation. Jonathan Swift uses the travel phenomenon After the years of enlightenment, the European spirits of discovery in his own unique way in hisGulliver's Travels (1726). Johnson led many expeditions, the major among them were those of Captain Rasselas tries to drive the point home through the extensive travels Cook's Pacific Explorations. The travel accounts of these expeditions of the protagonist that though man journeys from place to place in gained great popularity as well as social reactions. The accounts on search of pleasures and happiness. The ideal happiness is quite the Tahiti islands by his ship 'Endeavour' collected much attentions unobtainable. And the entire versions of the Picaresque Novels as the descriptions of these islands and the way of life of these modelled themselves on the wandering adventures of the roughish islanders served the element of wonder to the reading public. hero. Another great and noteworthy paradigm of eighteen century travel was the emerging popularity of the Grand Tour of Europe, which The nineteenth century bears the flair of romanticism and spirits of exposed the English Youth to the culture of the European Continent wonder in the travel accounts. By this time, England had almost in entirety and enabled them to have direct practice of the aristocratic established herself in the many of the Asian and African nations. etiquettes: Byron used travel as a poetic strategy and presented the world in the essence of remoteness and escape. Swinburne, Thackeray and Ruskin “A man who has not been in Italy is always conscious of also produced great stuff on travel. Moreover, there were ample an inferiority, from his not having seen what it is expected accounts on the English colonies spread on the earth. a man should see. The grand object of travelling is to see the shores of the Mediterranean. On those shores were the The new emerging travel and information technologies have turned four great empires of the world; the Assyrian, the Persian the world into a Hutch, transforming the travel into a mass activity. The Grecian and the Roman. All our religion, almost all Even people started emigrations on the social, political or on the our laws, almost all our arts, almost all that sets us above commercial plains. There are generations of writers who have made Savages, has come to us from the shores of the foreign lands their second home and given rise to what is termed as Mediterranean.” (Boswell's Life of Johnson Pp. 505) 'Diaspora Literature' in the modern creative literature.. Writers and (Originally quoted by Peter Whitefield in Travel: a literary artists such as T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, James Joyce, Joseph Conrad, History. 154) and Pablo Picasso were themselves émigrés, living much of their adult lives outside the nations of their birth. Since the entire route to Italy was predetermined and The years between the two World Wars proved much more prolific conventionalised, there was a little room for any variations and so and productive, and Paul Fussel rightly hails the decade of 1930s as few were the chances of its varied recreation: “Within this rigid 'the Golden Era' of travel writing, especially in Britain. In the hands framework, the promise of great travel literature would appear to be of the writers like D. H. Lawrence and Andre Gide, travel writing slight, and there is undoubtedly a sameness about the records of the obtained new heights of popularity. And as Carl Thompson puts it: Grand Tour. The skill of the writer was to ring innumerable variations on a few basic themes, to infuse personal colour, life, “In a decade that witnessed a global economic depression, adventure or eccentricity into the conventionalised experience.” the rise of totalitarianism in Europe, and ultimately the outbreak of the Second World War, the travelogue seemed When travel and travelling activities were so much so in vague, how to enable a more direct engagement with worldly affairs could creative writing maintain distance from them? There were and with politics than was possible in the traditional Travel Literature Through the Ages 29 30 Divyeshkumar D. Bhatt

literary genres. Figures such as George Orwell, Graham they are firmly rooted in the family and that is why immobile and Green, Evelyn Waugh, Peter Fleming, Robert Byron, have nothing to do with the prowess of travels and mobility, showed Ernest Hemingway, Rebecca West and Freya Stark no sign of weakening late until nineteenth century. During the phase accordingly took up the travel writing genre, and utilised it of colonialisation of the different parts of the world prvoved the most to diverse ends: as a form of political and cultural fertile phase for the production of the Travel Accounts and it is also commentary (in case of Orwell and West); as a source of true that in all the wake Women had accompanied men, still, as Sara comic adventures (Fleming and Waugh); or as a means of Mills observes: “...... , women as individuals and as writers are exploring subjectivity, memory and the unconscious always seen to be marginal to the process of colonialism.” (Greene 74).” And the few women travel accounts, just like the oasis in the wide After the wars too the genre sustained the interests of both the and far desert, were full of subjective concerns and lacking creative artists and the reading public. The flux of new age travel confidence and full of textual unease that the critics like Paul Fussel writing displayed a variety of innovative approaches in the genre. did not admit them as the travel accounts or as the stuff of creative The chief among them can be enumerated as that of “Paul Theroux's writing at all. Carl Thompson too makes quite similar observations in The Great Railway Bazzar: By Train through Asia (1975), and The this regard: Pantagonian Express (1979), Peter Matthiesen's The Snow Leopard (1975), Bruce Chatwin's In Pantagonia (1977) and Robin Davidson's “If the female traveller contravenes the patriarchal ideology of Tracks (1980).” The travel literature of this time, thus, exhibits a separate spheres by quitting her home and venturing out into the variety of interests and tonal diversifications. world, the female travel writer, or at least, the woman who publishes a travel account, contravenes that ideology twice over. Not only does Exactly during this time came Edward Said's seminal study she travel, she then positions herself a second time in the public “Orientalism” (1978). Said's study evoked a great attention towards sphere, as an author; and a reluctance to take up the latter role is a and critical debates on travel writing. Said's argument in it is: the further reason why there are so few published travelogues by women observations on all the oriental lands, people and culture made by the prior to 1800.” Even the noteworthy point in some of the nineteenth Western Travellers are with a pattern of constructing them as savage, century women travelogues, the women travel writers have adopted primitive and as the antithesis of a supposedly more enlightened West. Only these sort of superior motives have generally driven the the epistolary or the Diary format claiming that the observations and Westerners to serve their ideological ends, and to justify their reflections made in them were for personal references only and never colonial ambitions in these regions. intended to be published. Women Travellers and Their Travel Accounts In the modern era, with the safe and speedy travel technologies, women tread the world as freely and fearlessly as their male For centuries in almost all the civilizations on the earth, travel and counterparts. They receive ample room in publishing their accounts adventures are the qualities mainly attributed to the masculine power presenting to the world from a feministic view point. Still, there rings and prowess. On the other hand women are soundly rooted with the the note of resentment from the women travellers that they often household responsibilities as that of bringing up the children and “find themselves confronted with the cultural expectations and looking after the entire family activities. Moreover even though stereotypes which assume some types of travel and travel writing, women remained present on travels along with the men as wives, and arguably the very notion of travel per se, to be more commonly a caretakers or nurses, in the Patriarchal ideology to have their responses on such travels is quite that of a remote dream. The stamp masculine rather than a feminine activity.” of 'sessility' that has been stuck on the women on the grounds that Travel Literature Through the Ages 31 32 Divyeshkumar D. Bhatt

Critical Reactions Works Cited Critical reaction to travel narratives has a mixed history, with Adams Percy G (ed.),Travel Literature Through the Ages: An scholars such as Paul Fussell perceiving many of these texts as a Anthology New York: Garland, 1988. print “heaven for second-rate [literary] talents.” Yet their popularity Fussel, Paul. Abroad: British Literary Travelling Between the Wars, continues unabated, with travel writers having achieved remarkable Londan 1980. print commercial success. A notable example is the set of memoirs by Hulme, Peter and Tim Young,(ed.) The Cambridge Companion to British author Peter Mayle about France's Provence region, his Travel Writing Cambridge Uni. Press, 2002. print adopted home. According to Patrick Holland and Graham Huggan, Mills, Sara, Discourses of difference: an analysis of women's travel writers such as Mayle appeal to a mostly middle-class readership, writing and colonialism, Routledge, London, 1991. print and while their success is to be lauded, both critics caution against Patrick, Holland, Greham Haggan (ed.) Tourists with Typewriters: travel writing that “frequently provides an effective alibi for the Critical Reflections on Contemporary Travel Writing University perpetuation and reinstallation of ethnocentrically superior attitudes of Michigan Press, 1998. print to 'other' cultures, peoples, and places.” Holland and Huggan concede, nonetheless, that despite its accompanying prejudices, the Sherman, William “Stirring and Searching” Hulme, Peter and Tim Young,(ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Travel Writing, very act of writing about another culture or place introduces it to a Cambridge Uni. Press, 2002. print wider audience, allowing for the formation of new cultural affiliations and links that promote analysis and reassessment. In Orlean, Susan Introduction to My Kind of Place: Travel Stories from contrast to eighteenth- and nineteenth-century imperialist travel a Woman Who's Been Everywhere. Random House, 2004. print narratives, contemporary travel narratives cover a wide range of Whitefield, Peter,Travel: A Literary History, Bodleian Library, points of view, including those of postcolonial travellers, women, University of Oxford, 2011. print and environmentalists. In addition, the horizons for travel-related Thompson, Carl,Travel Writing, Routledge, New York, 2011. print texts continues to expand, through venues such as travel periodicals, the increased popularity of television programs focusing on travel and adventure, and the incredible mobility provided by modern means of travel. Even, the advancement and the spread of the computer technology and the facilities have given birth to a new kind of travel writings in the form of “Travel Blogs” --- which are easily accessible as well as get publication with a click of mouse..... Moreover, there are now ample travel accounts in English as well as in the other languages which present the eastern reflections on the west. The African Continent's reaction to what was popularised by the colonial traders rings the agitations of the natives for their unique cultures and traditions being painted with the labels of savageness and unscrupulous practices. Writers like Chinua Achebe have registered their resentments for such practices through their meritorious creative works. Journal of Rajasthan Association for Studies in English10: 33-37 (2014) 34 Gautam Sharma

created out of the name of the gotra (caste lineage) that his family belonged to. Reflection of Tibet's Traditions in Rahul Sankritayayan was a true vagabond who traveled to far lands like Russia, Korea, Japan, China, Tibet and many others. He Rahul Sankrityayan's Meri Tibet Yatra mastered the languages of these lands and was an authority on cultural studies. He traveled to Tibet in 1929-30 through the way of Gautam Sharma Nepal. Sankrityayan wrote many travelogues eg. Meri Lanka Yatra, Meri Iran Yatra, Meri Japan Yatra etc. He made several trips to Tibet Rahul Sankrityayan's original name Kedarnath Pandey was so deeply and valuable paintings and Pali and Sanskrit manuscripts back to influenced by Buddhism that he adopted it along with the name India. Most of these formed a part of the libraries of Vikramshila and Rahul (The name of Gautam Buddha's son). This influence is also Nalanda Universities. These objects had been taken to Tibet by felt in his storiesBandhul Mall ( 490 BC, 9th story) and Prabha . Also fleeing Buddhist monks during the twelfth and subsequent centuries the dynamical view of life which is at the centre of Buddhist when the invading Muslim armies had destroyed universities in philosophy can be seen. One more characteristic feature that India. Some accounts state that Rahul Sankrityayan employed deserves mention here is the simplicity of language. There are no twenty-two mules to bring these materials from Tibet to India. He pointless linguistic decorations here. The author instantly gets to the has a grandson named Prakhar Sankrityayan currently living in India. point just like Voltaire with Candide. April 9, 1893 to April 15, Patna Museum, Patna has a special section of these materials in his 1963; within this almost too neat 70-year span, Rahul Sankrityayan honour, where a number of these and other items have been lived many lives. He traveled indefatigably, wrote incessantly, displayed. His drive for self-definition, traced in detail in his life changed his name thrice ,and with it and beyond it, his ideological story, coincides with a powerful and focused proselytizing drive for affiliations, and left behind him an enormous archive of writing that social change, shaping the dynamics of the public and the private. In is rarely done full justice to in any one academic department. His life his writings, the individual self as an object of observation, analysis and work crosses a range of spatial boundaries-linguistic, and alteration, in keeping with a constantly evolving worldview, disciplinary, religious, ideological that defy easy classification. A takes shape within a context of multiple and shifting affiliations to quick recapitulation of his travels using the word in the fullest sense collectivities and communities. These include the family, religious of the term indicates the analytical challenge that he poses. communities, scholarly affiliations, anti-colonial political groupings, local/provincial, regional locations articulated in terms of issues of Born Kedarnath Pandey to an orthodox Brahmin family in Azamgarh language, all moving towards a humanism that seeks to transcend village in the state of Uttar Pradesh, he became a Hindusadhu and borders, geographical and discursive, even as it is richly local. This adopted the name Baba Ram Udaar Das in 1913 at the age of 10. But polymath's life and the writing of it often juxtaposes mutually the company ofsadhu s turned him into a bitter critic of orthodoxy. warring ideological stances and locations which sometimes get By 1930, he had earned the title and name that he died with and is resolved in linear, teleological narratives of growth, and at other known by, Mahapandit Tripitakacharya Rahul Sankrityayan. This times, in unresolved tensions. He also visited Europe as a Buddhist name and title is itself a testimony to the distance he had traveled, missionary in 1932, during which period he declined an invitation to since no part of it was his by birth. While his titles Mahapandit and travel to America in the same role. Tripitakacharya indicated his mastery of Sanskrit and Pali texts, the first name Rahul was chosen for its Buddhist antecedents (being the Rahula Sankrityayan's Socialist phase began in 1935 coinciding with name of Prince Siddhartha Gautama's son) and Sankrityayan was his visit to the USSR, where he was invited to teach Buddhist philosophy at Leningrad University by the legendary Professor Reflection of Tibet's Traditions in Rahul Sankrityayan's Meri Tibet Yatra 35 36 Gautam Sharma

Tscherbatsky, the noted Russian scholar of Buddhist logic, who held Rahul Sankrityayan in his work quoted the couplet of Nowzida Sankrityayan in high esteem for his scholarship and mastery of his Wazida's subject. He used the time well by learning the Mongolian and Story Khudrai Ka Natiza Russian languages. In 1937, 1944 and 1962, he revisited the USSR, “Sair kar duniya ki gafil zindagani phir kahan the last time tragically for treatment for amnesia. In between, he Zindagi gar kuchh rahi to naujawani phir kahan” returned to and traveled extensively in India, participating actively in the nationalist movement, especially in the Kisan Sabha and the This couplet of Urdu created love for travelling in Rahul. He started Indian National Congress. His nationalist political involvement travelling from 1923. First he made journey for Nepal and later earned him many friendships and associations as well as several jail travelled to Sri Lanka and Tibet four times. He composed twenty terms, which he effectively utilized to further his education and travelogues in period of thirty two years (1926-1958). Dr. Surendra produce much of his voluminous books. In 1939, he became a Mathur points out: member of the Communist Party of India and remained one for nine Travelogue is one of the best and popular styles to depict picture of years before having his membership revoked in 1948 for his words. This style is used to describe the pictures of things, feelings, controversial defense of the claims of Hindi, a position that was places and scenes. The canvas of travel literature is very large which perceived to be partisan and majoritarian by fellow comrades in the consists of geography, culture and time. In it the author expresses his increasingly communal debates around the espousal of Hindi as a feelings and observations in sentimental manner. In travel literature national language. He rejoined the party in 1955, continuing his the writer presents his experiences and incidents along with beautiful allegiance though focusing the last phase of his life on Buddhist natural scenes of the way. According to Dr. Raghuvansh: Travel teaching and scholarship. He finally settled in Darjeeling, where he literature has all elements of epic, story, novel, lyric, memoir,and passed away in 1963, the last few years of his active life rendered essay. tragic due to a debilitating amnesia, ironic in a man who, by the time of his death, knew around 34 languages, and had written extensively, Meri Tibet Yatra is written in diary style which contains Rahul largely from memory, in at least three Sankrityayan offers a Sanskrityayan travelling to Lahasa,Chang,Jenam, along with Nepal. justification similar in spirit, though not concerned with the question It describes details of the culture,nature and living standards of of culture specificity and on importance of travelogue he says: people of Tibet. First time Rahul went Tibet in (1929-30) via Nepal. At that time Indians were not permitted to travel that's why he went Main barbar yeh mahsoos karta raha, ki aise raste se guzare hue there in disguise of beggar. Second time he travelled to Tibet in doosre musafir yadi apni jeevan yatra ko lik gaye hote, to mera 1934, third in 1936 and after returning from third journey he wrote bahut laabh hua hota gyaan ke khayal se hi nahin, samay ke pariman MeriTibet Yatra. Sanskrityayan with his friends reached at deserted mein bhi. Main manta hoon hi koi bhi do jeevan yatraayen bilkul ek Chini Fort,there they drank tea.There they observed no casteism , si nahin ho saktin, to bhi isme sandeha nahin ki sabhi jeevano ko usi untouchability, and Parada system among women. People did allow aantarik aur baihya vishva ki tarangon main tairana parta hai. (I beggars in their houses although other ordinary persons could enter had often felt that I would have gained considerably if others who in any part of their house. had traveled this path had left their accounts not only in terms of knowledge gained but also in terms of time. I agree that no two lives The bookMeri Tibet Yatra begins with a letter to author's friend are identical, still there is no doubt that all lives have to swim in the Bhadant Anand Kautsayayan. Rahul ponts out on cultural and social same waters: whether internal or those of the external world. features of Tibetian language and compared it with words of Hindi. (Prakkathan i, Meri Jeevan Yatra: I , p. 1) He also discussed contemporary marriage and rituals of Tibet. He writes that in Tibet all brothers of a family had one wife so there was Reflection of Tibet's Traditions in Rahul Sankrityayan's Meri Tibet Yatra 37 Journal of Rajasthan Association for Studies in English10: 38-45 (2014) no distribution of property among them. The Travelogue also presents the pictures of efforts made for the discovery of Bodh Travel Literature : A pedagogical tool in foreign Granth .Dande was one of the most dangerous places from where language learning with special reference to Sanskrityayan and his friends passed during their journey for Tibet. In Tibet there was no law for having weapons so people could French writer “Montesquieu” in “Persian letters” wander with pistols, guns wherever they want. In Tibet Sanskritayayan stayed at Langor, Thongla and Tingri. In Tingri he Jaivardhan Singh Rathore found 103 manuscripts of Budh- Vach-Anuvad. In this paper an attempt has been made to analyse reflection of The travel literature is a genre of literature which puts across to the Tibet's traditions in Rahul Sankrityayan'sMeri Tibet Yatra. The readers the journey of a writer in a holistic manner thereby travelogue makes us aware about the culture, rituals of contemporary engendering the totality of the journey which could range from the society and various dangerous ways of Tibet. exploration of an unknown land to a voyage for a definite period with a specific motive. This type of literature is non linear and is Works Cited reality based. Travel literature plays a very significant role in Mathur, Surendra.Hindi Sahitya Ka Udbhav Aur Vikas , Delhi: Sahitya, teaching pedagogy especially in the domain of foreign language 1962. Print. learning. The mere knowledge of a language without the cultural Maya Joshi “ Rahul Sanskrityayan's Journey of the Self: Nation, Culture, comprehension acts as a body without soul. Through the writings of Identity in Manas Ray. Journal of Inter University Centre for these travel writers, the readers get a chance to imagine the far off Humnities Social Sciences xvi.1-2 (2009): 25-30. Print. places, relish the unforgettable experiences of the author and thereby Raghuvansh,Hindi Shabda Kosh , Varanasi: Gyanmandal,1985. Print. feel closer to the reality. With the discoveries and explanations of Rahul Sanskrityayan,Meri Tibet Yatra , Daraganj Prayag: Cchtrahitkari, these writers, the language teachers transmit the cultural knowledge 1937. Print. to language students all by immersing into the original experience of Rahul Sanskrityayan, Tibet Ke Sava Varsh , New Delhi: Sharda,1933. Print. the writer. These writers include a wide variety of people like Rahul Sanskrityayan,Yatra Ke Panne , Dehradun: Sahitya Sadan, 1952. merchants, explorers, army personnel, naval doctors, poets, linguists Print. and literary critics. This papers focuses on the work of the French writer Montesquieu (18 January 1689 – 10 February 1755) in his epistolary novel“Lettres persanes” (1721) i.e. “Persians letters” where two Persians Usbek and Rica visit Paris during the 18th century and express themselves over different issues like the laws, the morals, the French government, the French society etc. This paper explains the use and importance of travel writing as a pedagogical tool to enlighten the foreign language learners about the social and cultural aspects of a country. Introduction The Persian letters, an epistolary work by Montesquieu published in 1721, narrates the journey of two Persains, Usbek and Rica who visit France between1712 to 1720. They exchange letters, write to their different friends to inform them about their impressions and Travel Literature : A pedagogical tool in foreign language... 39 40 Jaivardhan Singh Rathore observations about France and at the same time receive information the simple fact that she didn't want to understand for not getting of their homeland Persia, in particular the seraglio of Usbek, at involved. Ispahan, where the disorder reigns since the departure of the King Usbek. Their stay which lasts for 8 years gives them a chance to Roxane observe the French society and its lifestyle. Their interaction with the She is the new wife of Usbek who was the most preferred among all French way of life permits them to understand the customs, the the three wives. She doesn't hesitate to revolt against the injustice religious and political traditions, and to make a report out of it for happening at the harem and prefers to die than to succumb to the their friends in Persia. The last 15 letters of this work are related to discrimination. the tragedy taking place at the harem of Usbek in Persia. Zelis Main characters of the story and their personality She favored the domination of women by Usbek in the beginning Usbek and supported him in his ideas of female submission to men. In the He is a Persian king, basically a philosopher who left his country to end she expresses that she has no love and respect for Usbek and that find the wisdom and the open-mindedness through the visit to a she claims her freedom. foreign land. His character is quite skeptic in the search of the universal codes of reason and virtue. In this way he finds himself Different aspects through the letters very close to his own principles of thinking. He is staunch supporter The social life of Islam and shunts between skepticism and fanatic commitment, The social criticism is openly exhibited by Rica who does it after which makes his character paradoxical and instable. On one hand, he observing the French people. He considers the French society as a behaves as a despot with his wives whereas on the other hand he grotesque comedy where everyone stays in his/her place and masks criticizes the French kings who practice despotism. He exhibits a the face by a false appearance to pretend better than the others. He great sense of enthusiasm and appreciation for the western values says "tout le peuple s'assemble sur la fin de l'après-midi et va especially in terms of scientific progress but at the same time he jouer une espèce de scène” “everyone gathers late in the curses it as well. Somewhere through his character as a spokesperson afternoon and plays a kind of scene”. In fact Montesquieu thinks the contradictions prevailing in the mind of Montesquieu are depicted. that the French society treats itself as a spectacle and that it supports and praises the high pitched social life. The aspects of arrogance and Rica vanity are equally shown by Rica in Letter 50 where he says "Je vois He is a young and lively person who is able to do the comparison de tous côtés des gens qui parlent sans cesse d'eux-mêmes; leurs between the values and traditions of Persia and France. He is conversations sont un miroir qui présente toujours leur completely enchanted by this huge change and describes his impertinente figure" “I see from all the sides the people who are amazement through his letters to his friends in Persia. In Letter 38 he speaking continuously about themselves and their conversations writes “Tu vois mon cher Idden, que j'ai pris le gout de ce pays” are like the mirrors which represents a presumptuous facet”. “You see my dear Ibben, I've started enjoying my stay in this These people want to attract the attention of the listeners by country”. describing them the least possible things and thereby expecting a Wives of Usbek great reaction from the audience. Similarly the anecdote in the Letter 52 where Rica narrates the backbiting of four women of 80 years, 60 Zachi years, 40 years and 20 years old approximately where each one tries She is the one, who stays passive till the end in the whole framework. to project herself superior to the other. Apart from this, these Persians She doesn't understand as to what was happening in the harem for illustrated that the French people could not live outside their society Travel Literature : A pedagogical tool in foreign language... 41 42 Jaivardhan Singh Rathore and that the concept of man being a social animal was over applied by the conversation where Usbek says “Ne voyez-vous pas que le in their society. The French culture of that epoch was full of Saint Esprit nous éclaire? Cela est heureux car de la manière falsehood of women, superficiality and pretentiousness of men of dont vous en avez parlé je reconnais que vous avez un grand wisdom which manifested the intellectual life of Paris. All the social besoin d'être éclair” “Don't you see that the sacred mind gestures were developed around the ideological quarrels, being loud, enlightens us? It's fortunate because the manner in which you noisy and useless. The Persian glance involves its great acuteness as speak, I recognize that you require a great need to be the astonishment and the impishness at the beginning of these two enlightened”. Moreover, the writer Montesquieu portrays himself as Persians starts to dwindle into nothingness of the social life. a conscious citizen by accusing the fact of being spinster of the religious saints and in his Letter 117 considers them “gens avares The political life qui prennent toujours et ne rendent jamais” “the greedy people The principal source of criticism is the reign of King Louis XIV. who take everything and do not return anything”. Usbek designs a portrait of him as a person who is a mix a characters: miser and spendthrift, clear-sighted and blind at the same But above all Montesquieu denounces the religious intolerance by time but above all complete, distributing the reward or accusing the society where he finds violent consequences. Through the Letter people in a random manner was his art. Moreover Usbek refuses the 85, Montesquieu explains by the intermediary of Usbek that “Ce despotism and critics the monarchy of the divine right which n'est point la multiplicité des religions qui a produit les guerres, considers a king as “a sun that bring warmth and life c'est l'esprit d'intolérance de celle qui se croyait la dominante” everywhere” by putting God at the centre of all the political affairs. “This is not the multiple existence of the religions that has This denunciation of despotism is based on the observation of the created wars among the mankind rather it is the religious wearing out of the Parliaments and the confusion of the power. On intolerance that has built this domination of one religion over the the contrary, the praise of Troglodytes in the Utopia and proposes an other”. Through this epistolary work the hypocrisy and corruption of ideal democracy based on the virtue. The epistolary characters the priests has been deeply condemned which leads to distrustfulness suggest a government formed on the basis of reason and claim the for the religions. confidence in the elements of justice, with a mutual concord with the Different humanistic aspects nature. Their preference for the British model of government where Freedom the powers are balanced out goes well with the aspect of brotherhood. Montesquieu also shuns the concept of “slavery” In this work, liberty has been praised and incarnated by one of the prevailing at that time. It's in the Letter 118 that he criticizes the characters, Roxanne, one of the wives of Usbek who revolts against kings who practice slavery and ill treat the people. He says that the the despotism of her master i.e. her husband and prefers leaving this kings are not even bothered about these slaves and sell the innocent world rather than portraying for “women as an object”. people to some other countries at no prices. He adds “Il n'y a rien si Rationality extravagant que de faire périr un nombre innombrable Justice and reason are few of the important components of d'hommes pour tirer du fond de la terre l'or et l'argent” “There Montesquieu's philosophy. In the Letter 97, Montesquieu explains is nothing as extravagant as to perish a certain number of its that it's because of these two components that “les hommes ont own people to obtain gold or silver from the earth”. débrouillé le chaos et ont expliqué par une mécanique simple Religious Life l'ordre de l'architecture divine” “Men have managed the chaos The main criticism is carried out on the religion prevailing at that and have explained by a simple mechanic of divine architecture” epoch. The obscurity existing in the religious ideas has been shown in the same letter he writes “la raison a permis la découverte de Travel Literature : A pedagogical tool in foreign language... 43 44 Jaivardhan Singh Rathore cinq ou six verities” “It's the reason that has permitted to and at the same the tumult at the harem in Persia is shown. This work discover the 5 or 6 truths of life” puts on view the local colors and values but also an evolution towards a tragic unfolding. It is through the writing of Rica that one Happiness observes France through a crude and astonished point of view. One The question is posed by Mirza in the Letter 10 where he asks “Hier can also read the different version of the tragedy that takes place in on mit en question si les hommes étaient heureux par les plaisirs Persia. Among the three wives of Usbek, Zachi, Roxane and Zelis a et les satisfactions des sens, ou par la pratique de la vertu” strange change is observed and they break the shackles of their “yesterday it was asked if the men were happy by the pleasures submission to their master. Roxane before poisoning herself cries out and the satisfactions of sense or by practicing virtue”. It is the her hatred towards her husband. This end transforms the satiric and fable of Troglodytes which extends this topic. Troglodytes expresses philosophic novel into a tragic episode. his happiness on productive work, friendship, family, the fact to live in harmony with the nature and the eternal power. “Ils travaillaient Lettres persanes and French language learners avec une sollicitude commune pour l'intérêt commun; ils For any language student it becomes imperative that after a certain n'avaient de différends que ceux qu'une douce et tendre amitié basic knowledge of that specific language, to immerse into the faisaient naître [...] ils menaient une vie heureuse et tranquille” cultural and the literary knowledge of that country. Through “Lettres “They work with a certain affection for the general interest, they persanes”, a learner gets a deep understanding not only about the did not have disagreement and a true and sweet friendship social, political, economic and legal aspect of that country but at the existed. They lead a happy and serene life”. same time gets a chance to compare the then existing situations with The parliamentary system of England that of his own country. Through this epistolary work, Montesquieu puts across different In respect to this epistolary work, students can learn the values of types of power in the country of that era. Monarchy according to societal functioning like honesty, justice, freedom, self-control etc. at Usbek was “un état violent qui dégénère toujours en despotisme". the same time, the hypocrisy of religion, people and high order (cf. lettre 131) “a violent state which degenerates always into working can be brought into a deep reflection. This piece of work despotism”. Montesquieu advocated a separation of powers and the triggers the thought process among the language learners and thereby type of regime which was very convincing for him was the provides them an insight of different parameters on which a society Monarchy parliamentary system of England, it pleased him at such a runs. stature that he spent one and a half year in England comparing the laws and the institutions with that of France. The language experts can pick any single or multiple aspects of this work to be dealt in the class. For instance the following themes could Justice be analyzed: The ideal of justice for Montesquieu is an independent justice which · would not be divine. “Quand il n'y aurait pas de Dieu nous Comparison of women condition in France and India during the th devrions toujours aimer la justice” “When there would be no 18 century God , we should always love and adhere to justice”. According to · Critical examination of reign of “Louis XIV” Montesquieu the justice is eternal and doesn't depend on the human · th convention. French society during 18 century – A pompous world · “Religion and Man” through lettres persanes Satire and philosophy · Through these letters, the reign of Louis XIV is depicted in France “Society -then and now” evolutions and similarities Travel Literature : A pedagogical tool in foreign language... 45 Journal of Rajasthan Association for Studies in English10: 46-51 (2014)

Through these varied areas, language learners will not only comprehend this masterpiece as a mere epistolary work but also try to enhance their critical approach towards the societal functioning. Conclusion Major Travel Writers of India A moderate wisdom is put forward by Montesquieu through these letters which expresses his confidence in a prosperous life and in the Kiran Deshwal proven worth of the fact that one lives in close conformity with the nature. It's always the excess that has been denounced. According to Life is a journey of which travelogue is a written account. Montesquieu the concept of ideal society termed as “Utopia” doesn't truly exist and would never exist. However, he suggested that the Travelogue or Itinerary writing is a literary genre that typically power of philosophy, revolt and science could bring a harmony records the experiences of an author touring a place for the pleasure among the human beings. The egoism of man, his lies, the separation of travel. Travel literature may be cross-cultural or transnational in between heart and mind, the dreadfulness of the unwise power, is a focus, or may involve travel to different regions within the same reason of malfunctioning of any society. The Persian letters can be country. Literary travelogues generally written in the forms of letters, read as a novel which searches the equilibrium in the social order memoirs, autobiographies, diaries and novels. Travelogues bring the based on the parameter of reason and justice. Undoubtedly, the world together and make it multicultural and globalized. Various perusal for freedom and tolerance forms the basis of this work. This travelogues by the authors of different countries locate the cultural masterpiece also inculcates the attributes of understanding the implications of particular nations. difference between right and wrong, thereby bringing over a positive The present paper is divided into two sections. The first part deals change in the system. Through this work, language learning students th with travel writers of India (both Hindi and English) with a brief can submerge into the French world of 18 century. analysis of their work. Second part analyses Indian culture, tradition, Works Cited social structure, economy, history, political structure, religion,

th religious myths and legends depicted in these travelogues. My aim is A. Lagarde, L. Michard. Collection Litteraire Lagarde et Michard, 18 Century, Paris: 20012. Print. to examine the way of narration according to language Hindi and English respectively in these travelogues how a writer struggles to Montesquieu, lettres persanes, Cologne: Pierre Marteau. 1721. Print. find equivalents to bridge the gaps of language in his description of http://www.bacdefrancais.net/lettre-synthese.php (15 December, 2013)web. another place and culture. http://bac-s.digischool.fr/docs/7032e79d87bb36ae2d0fb82f0b2a58e2-fiche- Rahul Sanskrityayan, the father of Hindi travel writing believed in lecture---les-lettres-persanes---montesquieu.pdf (15 December, 2013) visiting various places on one's own. In his view travelling is the best web. way of meeting with local people. He studied deeply their food, customs, way of living and language through travelling. Travelling is the end as well as the beginning of his curiosities about religion, culture, caste and race. According to him travelling is the way to earn knowledge. He wrote about his travelling to Buddhist shrines. His best travelogueKinner Desh ne is an account of his travelling in Himalayan region. Major Travel Writers of India 47 48 Kiran Deshwal

Upendranath Ashq describes his love for mountains in Paharo Ka Assisi, Feraije, Stokhome, Peshaver, Manali and Kanchi. He recalls Premmaya Sangeet. He describes a fair (sipi ka mela) celebrated in in it his blissful days spent there. In his journey on the mountains of Koti nine miles far from Shimla and his thrilling experience which Helvelin and Rohtang, he put his life on stake but it is difficult for he gained from it. him to define what isfirdosh and what is dojakh :- Devendra Satyarthi travelled the whole Indian continent in search of ^^D;ksa uk QfjnkSl esa nkst+[k dks feyk ;s ;k jc folksongs. He wandered in villages and fields to watch the varied lSj ds okLrs FkksM+h lh fQt+k vkSj lghA** beauty of nature. He gives a pleasant description of his travells in works like Darti Gati Hai (1938), Dheere Baho Ganga (1948) BELA His description is too simple. He did not try to influence his readers Fule Adhi Raatand Rekhaye Bol Uthi. with the magnificence of western culture. He makes an humble attempt to make familiar the readers with western culture, history, Daramveer Bharti's workYatrachkra (1994) deals with his special legends and art. That's why the description of the tales of Narnarayan foreign travels. It is divided into threeChakra. The first describes his (king of Coachvihar) and Saint Francis makes realistic the places. journey to England, Germany, Indonesia and Mauritius. Second Each event is a part of the whole as the detailed descriptions of the describes his journey to battle grounds. superstitions of Saarland, conversation with Yashpal and meeting These journeys reflect the geographical landscape, social and cultural with Linda Grace. life of the places he visited. His description is so live that all Vikram Seth in his From Heaven Lake: Travels Through Sinkiang described things seem realistic. He writes for his journey to and Tibet (1990) describes his journey which he took after two years Bangladesh: as a postgraduate student at Nanjing University in China, Vikram ^^;g esjk lkSHkkX; gh lef>, fd ckaXykns'k ds eqfDr&laxzke esa 'kkfey gksus dk Seth hitch-hiked back to his home in New Delhi, via Tibet. It is the volj feykA gokbZ geyksa] QwVrs ceksa] xjtrh rksiksa] cjlrh xksfy;ksa] tyrh story of his remarkable journey and his encounters with nomadic thiksa vkSj [ksrksa esa fc[kjh yk'kksa ds chp ls xqtjukA mQ! dgk¡ x;k Fkk Hk; Muslims, Chinese officials, Buddhists and others. This journey brilliantly states the best ways to experience another culture. Learn ml le;A** (I was fortune that I got the opportunity to visit the their language and then promptly hitch hike your way across. This is freedom struggle of Bangladesh. To pass through the air attacks, precisely what Vikram Seth chances upon. He captures the emotions bomb blasts, thundering of guns, pouring bullets, burning jeeps and of his friendship with the Chinese people, especially the tension scattered corpses in fields. Alas! Where was fear at that time.) between the majority Han and minority Uighars, Mangols and the Rahul Sanskritayan also states that a traveller must be fearless to Tibetans. The travel aboard a truck as it crisscrosses across Sinkiang achieve his aim of travelling. No one can stop him; neither the state and Tibet brings about a constant stream of challenges, from police nor the fear of death. Further Bharti writes that we went in unknown checks, bartering to frequent unwarranted stops when the truck gets countries. We find there unknown people, unknown language, stuck in mud. These occurrences produce the best phrases out of the unknown nature, landscape and climate and more than that way of author like....'A mind clouded with rage is fearsome even to itself.' I living is also of different type. It is really thrilling when after agree with Vikramseth's analysis in the end though when he travelling there we become a little acquaintance of all these things compares India with China and the way both have progressed under because little drops fill the pitcher. different systems of governance. According to his observation if you are dirt poor than you are better off born in China as compared to Outstanding travelogues are written by H. V. Agyeya in Hindi. He India. On the other hand if you are on the upper end of the poverty says that a traveller should be devoted to his journey. In his scale, than India offers a better prospect for future. The description is memorable pieceAre Yayaver Rhega Yad, he describes his journey to both apt and limiting. It is worth musing on the idea that travel may Major Travel Writers of India 49 50 Kiran Deshwal be merely a way of collecting a pool of nostalgia for future transformation of writer's experiences to the reader. Language style regurgitation. But this particular description of the author's journey makes a piece of writing effective. There are two aspects of each through China – initially west-east and then north-south in the early journey:- 1980s – does not seem to have added very much potential fuel to 1. The pleasure a writer experiences or feels through a journey. future's recollected fires. At the time it was hardly common for an 2. The words and language in which it can be expressed in a individual to travel independently in China, let alone enter Tibet via correct, perfect and exact way. Qinghai or – even more unlikely – exit China via Tibet into Nepal. But this is precisely what Vikram Seth did, and to add icing to the The foremost difficulty of an author is how to express with aliveness achievement cake, his preferred mode of transport was hitch-hiking. which he felt or experienced in the journey. Mohan Rakesh describes It is largely the mechanics and logistics of this journey that provide the poor social situation of India in the following lines in which he most of the content of the book. He did have some language without draws a portrait of the family of a worker : which, given the twists and turns bureaucracy forced, he would ^^--- ikl gh rhu & pkj vfLFk'ks"k cPps] ftuds flj muds 'kjhjksa dh vis{kk surely not have achieved his goal. vkuqikfrd :i ls cgqr cM+s Fks] ,d nwljs dh rjQ jksM+s Qsd jgs FksA dqN Khuswant Singh, describes Kasauli as "the place where kissing is gVdj ,d L=h viuk lw[kk Lru ,d f'k'kq ds eq¡g esa fn;s cSBh Fkh vkSj always in season" says Kulpreet yadav in his narrative work Kasauli ckj&ckj mlds xky dh Ropk dks pwe jgh FkhA ;g ml ifjokj dh viuh Travelogue: The Place Where Kissing is Always in Season. At 6,000 nksigj Fkh& jk"Vª dh ,d vkSj lkaLÑfrd bdkbZA (At hand there were feet, sporting tall and slender pine trees and perennial burst of wild and ornamental flowers, Kasauli sure drugs the visitor with its scenic three–four skeleton children, their heads were disproof bigger than beauty and cooler climes. their body, they were throwing pebbles on each other. At some distance, a lady was sitting there having her dry nipple in his baby's He also describes fruit wines and tax exemption, made thine not so mouth and she was kissing the dry skin of his child repeatedly. That costly. However, the peach wine was sportingly sweet for an was the afternoon of their own–one more cultural unit of the nation.) unaccustomed Indian palate. Then The Kasauli Club which served players and guest alike with muffins, macaroons, paper-thin It highlights that travel literature not only describes the cultural cucumber sandwiches, sponge cakes and large iced cakes served on values but also social problems and sometimes paves a path to their shining silver stands, all for one rupee". The club, even today, looks solutions. Most of the critics find that Vikram seth's travelogue is dry majestic and imposing, withstanding its glory and magnificence with because it just describes the challenges and problems faced by him. pride and colonial charm. Then The Kasauli Brewery Which is Travelogues by Hindi writers are more pleasant and soothing as they famous for making the "scotch of the east", Solan No 1 brand, are replete with emotions and feelings. They are able to express what besides the first ever Asian beer, Lion. Kulpreet's description serves they felt in reality. As far as Indian location is concerned it is as a guide book for those who wish to visit kasauli. described in a batter ways in Hindi travel writing than English. Coming to my last point I would like to add that all travel writers and It can be concluded that there are various beautiful places, unique critics agree that each journey has its aim. In travel literature a writer creatures, fantastic citizens, learned scholars, laughing flowers, green either consciously or unconsciously talks about the geographical, fields, vast deserts, blue ocean and sky, broad daylight, dense historical, economic, social, political, moral, literary conditions of a darkness, mountains covered with snow, boats floating on rivers, place visited by him. And somehow he becomes familiar with all cafes, battle grounds, markets, fairs, highways and narrow paths at these. Language is the most important element of any written piece. the same time in a travel literature. More than that emotions and It is the carrier of feelings and emotions as well as the medium of the feelings are also there which make it alive. Major Travel Writers of India 51 Journal of Rajasthan Association for Studies in English10: 52-55 (2014)

Works Cited ikaMs;] MkW- tkudhA ^^egkiaMfr jkgqy lkaLÑR;k;u dk ;k=k laLej.kA** jkgqy lkaLÑR;k;u% fofo/k çlaxA MkW- çHkqukjk;.k fo|kFkhZA iVuk% ftKklk çdk'ku] 2003A fçUV Writing Travelogue through Composition ekfyd] MkW- ek;kA/kzeohjHkkjrh ds dkO; esa vuqHkwfr vkSj vfHko;fDrA fnYyh% lat; çdk'ku] 2006A fçUV Krati Sharma 'kqDy] okxh'kA ^^;k;koj vKs;**AvKs; lgpjA fo'oukFk çlkn frokjhA 'kekZ] eqjkjhykyA fgUnh ;k=k lkfgR;% Lo:i vkSj fodklA ubZ fnYyh % English language Teaching is a challenge for ESL Learners. It is Dykfldy ifCyf'kax daiuh] 2003A fçUV always a challenge for the facilitator to teach ESL learners in an Yadav, Kulpreet. “Kausali India Travelogue: The Place Where Kissing is innovative way with blended interest in writing in English. The Always in Season”. May 26, 2010. http://goindia.about.com/od/ second stage of learning English is writing. Learners belong to travelogues/a/Kausali-travelogue.htm, 13/12/2013. Web. different socio cultural background and sensibilities. For learners Seth, Vikram.From Heaven Lake: Travels Through Sinkiang and Tibet. Print writing needs creative urges and observation sensibility. In the https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50367. From_Heaven_Lake present paper we are discussing how to make the ESL learners to 13/12/2013. 04: 45. Web write and compose their views about travelogue. The objective of this paper is to make ESL Learners to learn how to write or document their experiences. Writing a composition about their visit to any place / monument/ event or commuting in transportation. This exercise will make them comfortable in writing their experiences of travelling. This in future makes them able to record their travelling experiences. This paper is divided into five stages. I The first stage is facilitator centric. In this stage facilitator define what is a composition? The wordcomposition comes from the Latin componere, meaning "put together" and its meaning remains close to this. Writing classes are often called composition classes, and writing music is also called composition. This can also describe things besides writing that are "put together." You could say an abstract painting has an interesting composition. Any mixture of ingredients can be called a composition. Composition is another word for writing-the act of writing or the piece of writing that results. It also refers to what something is made of. For writing anything there is element of coherence is essential amalgm.The writing skills are needed to present with a holistic approach. This is very important to make learners clear that they should present their ways in totality. Writing Travelogue through Composition 53 54 Krati Sharma

Facilitator will give them short passages for reading so that they can hold to be the living power and prime agent of all human perception, understand the concept of coherence. Facilitator tries that ESL and as a repetition in the finite of the eternal act of creation of the Learners shed their inhibition and talk about the given topics. infinite I AM. The secondary I consider as an echo of the former, Facilitator asks them to 'talk about themselves' and give them coexisting with the conscious will, yet still identical with the primary pointers like: name, place, family background, hobbies. ESL in thekind of its agency, and differing only in degree , and in the Learners try to give their answers. This is very important exercise to mode of its operation” (387). In this stage their imagination will break the ice. Facilitator gives them another example that is to talk work. about their visit to any picnic spot. In this writing exercise facilitator It is observed in this stage that some of the Learners find it difficult ask them that what they will write as there are many things come in to write they are unable to compose what they have experienced. Learners mind about the given topic. One is the name of that Facilitators help them with vocabulary and sentence structures. Some particular spot and location of the place, the means of transportation, find it hard to write five hundred words. In this way each group will their observation of that place that is what they like or dislike, food, come up with five compositions on the same experience. Facilitator dresses and about the people. This is readymade material learners will ask them to read individually aloud so that the rest of the have that's way they can talk on it. Facilitators would like to that the learners will listen and comprehend his experience. Through this Learners write about it keeping in mind about given the pointers. stage Facilitators will find out some good writers some budding and Once they finished with this task they will submit their assignment to some toddlers. All the Learners here able to find out the difference the facilitator individually. style of composition the same experience. II IV In the second stage facilitator will divide the class in into five group In the fourth stage Facilitators defines them what is travelogue? each group is having five members. Each group will be allotted to a These Learners belong to an era where everything is digitalized and tourist spot. They are required to bring photos and write up of their writing and recording one's experience is need of an hour. Learners experiences individually on it. This is a practical approach to write a are connected to social sites. If they are able to write travelogue they composition on travelogue experience. In this stage learners will go can share their experiences to larger group. They can connect and to different spots and spent some time there in company of their record their experiences through writing travelogue. This is means to friends. They will also observe things there and will take pictures to create history and save it for posterity. In context of the present have a record of their visit. This is like a observation process . scenario Learners are techno savvy and selfie. Writing travelogue III will give them an opportunity to record what they witness and documented with the pictures and seal their memory. Now comes the third stage, in this stage Facilitator will ask each group to share their experiences with the other group. This exercise V will go for twenty minutes. After this exercise facilitator will come This is the stage of their analysis where learners will analysis how back to composition task and ask them to write and compose their they have evolve themselves in the process of observation and their experience of visit to that location. Learners will involve in writing writing. After the four stages they reach to the last stage where they process where they have to document their experience of travelling. not only present and share their experience but also learn how to Now what they have observe will be document. Each member has to compose it. Writing is important part of Language learning. The write individually their experience in about five hundred words. objective of this pedagogy is make learner familiar with writing Coleridge writes inBiographia Literaria “ The primary imagination I about their experience of travelling. It is an interesting exercise as it Writing Travelogue through Composition 55 Journal of Rajasthan Association for Studies in English10: 56-60 (2014) is belong to the writer and he is the focal point in this writing. This is also means to make them comfortable in writing in English composition. By doing this exercise learners will learn how to write travelogue waht are the important part of writing them, what to Contextualizing the Past Through A Probing include and what to leave while writing them. It is an important part Travelogue: Black Lamb and Grey Falcon of today's era where there is need to record your experiences and to share them with the larger group. Manisha Sharma All of them are travellers in one or the other way. Daniel Chandler in his article “Semiotics for Beginners” writes, “Language plays a Travelling has always been a sensational eye opener for the crucial role in 'constructing reality'”. Learners need to understand adventure seekers and provides an opportunity to delve deep into the this aspect of putting up their experience in an interesting manner. glorious past of a place making one a part and parcel of its history This will inculcate in them seeing life from different angle. This will and ethnography. give them happiness that they have created short travelogue. 1 th Dame Rebecca West British writer of 20 century made a distinctive Works Cited endeavor to throw light on the historiography of Yugoslavia2 region in her widely distinguished non-fiction work Black Lamb and Grey Chandler Daniel. “Semiotics for Beginners” N.d. Web 10 dec.2013< falcon. This work is an epic travelogue which sweeps through the http://visual-memory.co.uk/daniel/Documents/S4B/sem02.html> 2 Eletronic Publication. former Yugoslavia and its many adjoining regions like Croatia, Dalmatia, Herzegovina, Bosnia, Serbia, Macedonia and Montenegro. Colridge. Biographia Literaria." The Norton Anthology of English West has recreated and rewoven history with her brilliant uncanny Literature. Ed. M. H. Abrams. Vol. 2. New York: W. W. Norton & knack, intertwining and intermingling the near and distant past in Company. 378-395. Print. such a superb narrative that possesses something of the spicy flavour of the magnum opus of Marcel Proust3 . The book grapples with the question of being, an endless and seamless struggle for seeking identity in macrocosm. The book revolves around West's own exploration of humanity by using historical and political issues in Yugoslavia as a prism to reveal the full multicolored spectrum of history. This immense record of West's frequent visits consists of 1150 page portraying a vivid picture of the violent history of the Balkans going back some hundreds of years. The troubled past of the Balkans is deftly untangled while projecting the present side by side. This vast and complex book has proved to a timeless guide to Yugoslavia a remarkable portraiture of the author's soul and of Europe on the brink of World War II. The amazing fact is that she made one pleasure trip to Yugoslavia without knowing its previous history or demography. In the prologue, West remembers herself "Peering" at old film Contextualizing the Past Through A Probing... 57 58 Manisha Sharma footage of the king of Yugoslavia, like an old woman reading the tea book has inexhaustible capacity for the self- fuelling discussion, for leaves in her cup. examining the implications of everything that it touches upon, is central to West's felicity of expression. West tried to continue those As a book about Yugoslavia she credited it as of "Extraordinary" travels in space and time, cause and effect, the Slav way of life that usefulness a kind of metaphysical lonely planet that never requires makes this book a three dimensional plethora. updating." She observed" sometimes it is necessary for us to know where we are in eternity as well as in time". The book's practical Miss West visited Zagreb at Eastertime in 1937 with her husband. worth is nicely suggested by the Journalist Robert Kaplan4 who They were accompanied by three friends whose thrilling experiences remembers taking the book with him everywhere in Yugoslavia. shapened the book rendering the Croatian problem. The visit to the Same opinion is suggested - beautiful ancient culture of an old homestead of korchula in Dalmatian the recreation of medieval history by Kosovo field, the "In this book Rebecca West weaves together history, ethnography sights of mountain peasant men and women who live carefree in and travelogue into an encyclopedic and unforgettable portrait of this bondaged Bosnia, a devoted priest in exile at Neresi in Macedonia troubled region" Stephen B. Selbst, 2004. and with Bulgarian partisans- all these tableau like images make The book is a graphical and chronological detailed account of about unified whole in macrocosm. the people lived there, their daily lives, how they worshipped and The fearless voice of the Slavs in a sanitarium in Croatia, the mosaic what they wore. Her meticulous images of the remote communities like scenic description of each event or character woven with golden and many churches and religious shrines that she visited, are well- texture of imagination and pictography makes this book an indelible projected. The reader feels as if he were there visiting diverse places. expression of travel experience. Like an alchemist, West has used 5 West explores the modern history of the Balkans , the significant brilliant craftsmanship of word gallery that become existential Balkan wars, the number of rebellions and protest that outcast the elements to make a forum of enlightenment and the stimulus of th th ottoman empire in the 19 and 20 centuries. She has mentioned provocative thought, projection of empire, a parable of Cadmus and 6 particularly the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo literature, the analytical probing into the way of lives of the in 1914 which precipitated and produced world War-I, an event that inhabitants, the artistic stuffing of the crimson and gold vaults and was recent issue. stalactites with the furred ghosts, quail, pheasant, woodcock, On the other hand West examines critically the ancient history also partridge, capercaillie, boars standing bristling flank to flank with that peeps into the Battle of Kosovo7 in 1389. This decisive battle grouping of hares and rabbits- all these have enriched the flavored established the supremacy and legacy of Turks over the orthodox dish of the book. This book has mingled up description and Serbs. They den moved ahead in further north and east of Europe. characterization on a thread of personal experience. It is carried out with tireless percipience, magnification and intensification that it This voluminous book describes the author's travels to Yugoslavia took the shape of many facaded travel guide to Yugoslavia. with her husband in 1937- a journey overshadowed by the growing inevitability of the world War- II. Part travelogue, part history, part The symbolic image ofGrey Falcon is used as an enigmatic figure in love letter on a thousand page scale, this book is a magnificent a Slav folksong about a military defeat in the year 1389. This symbol crystal clear mirror revealing the depths of feelings through a denotes the sad dilemma of modern pacifism and its tragic results. historical sensation- the scent of plucked flower is saturated with the The black lamb symbolizes false and impious sacrifice and also smell of the past. Geography and history sometimes make a about evil-mindedness. The king preferred piety instead of defense ravishing amalgamation of past, present and foresighting future. The for Christian civilization, against its impending enemy," all was holy Contextualizing the Past Through A Probing... 59 60 Manisha Sharma and honorable with in him but like the celebrants of false sacrifice, 7 Battle of Kosovo:- Also known as theBattle of Blackbird's field took he set death before life. He died in battlefield and slavery came upon place in 1389 between the Serbian army and invading army of the the Balkans. The innermost desire of the Slav that love independence ottoman empire amidst slavish atmosphere and how they maintain dignity in poverty Works Cited is remarkably sketched "The Slav is never subject, not even to Bernard, Schweizer, Rebecca West : Heroism, Rebellion and the Female himself" this aspect of their spirit prevailed throughout despite the Epic, Greenwood, 2002, 72-76. Print. divide and rule policy of their conquerors. Bonnie Kime Scott,Refiguring Modernism (Vol.2). 161.Print. Miss West has focused on the details of the assassination that made Carl Rollyson,Rebecca West: A life Scribner, 1996. Print. the city drastically changed. The conspiracy against Archduke Franze Gordon N. Ray,H.G. Wells & Rebecca West. New Haven: Yale UP, 1974. Print. Ferdinand is described scrupulously and the individuals come and go conveying the life style of people residing there" the peasant woman Peter, Wolfe,Rebecca West , Artist and thinker , Southern Illinois, 1971. Print. in the church skopljie, with her terrible story strength of Macedonia Rebecca, West,Black Lamb and Grey Falcon . New Delhi: Penguin, 1994. and the last drops of the Byzantine tradition." The narratives of Print. battles, slavery and assassinations make the central theme of the Rebecca, West "Can Christian Faith Survive this War?" Interview conducted book. Miss West herself being the great admirer of the serb culture byThe Daily Express 1945.Print. has tried to project their fortitude, their pains and their pleasures in Victoria, Glendinnin.Rebecca West: A Life , Knopf, 1987. Print. Yugoslavia. The book smacks of various issues related to men and women, art and music, empiricism, travelling as a thriller and so on. HenceBlack lamb and Grey Falcon can be regarded as an epoch making political and historical commentary in the gamut of travel literature. Notes 1. Dame Rebecca West (1892-1983) was an English author, Journalist, literary critic and travel writer. 2. Yugoslavia: - (Serbo- Croatian, Macedonian, Slovene) formed in 1918 as the kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, was a country in the western part of Southeast Europe. 3. Marcel Proust- (1871-1922) was a French novelist, critic and essayist, best known for his novel,In the Search of Lost Time . 4. Robert David Kaplan (1952……..) is an American journalist for The AtlanticMagazine and a writer for Stratfor. 5 Balkans- The Balkan Peninsula is a geographical and cultural region of southern east Europe. 6 Archduke Franz Ferdinand (1875-1914) was an Archduke of Austria- Este, Austro-Hungarian and Royal Prince of Hungry and Bohemia. Journal of Rajasthan Association for Studies in English10: 61-69 (2014) 62 Narsingh Jangra

journals, letters, diaries written by them have become a good source material for the study of its culture, its tradition, its languages, its people and its other unique features. Mark Tully's No Full Stops in India: A Study of Colonial Hangover Travellers coming to India have continually been startled. Annoyed and attracted by its colossal and inexplicable diversities. James Narsingh Jangra O'Reilly and Larry Habegger in the introduction to their book, Travelers' Tales India, write: “Many go to India on the eternal pilgrimage, looking for enlightenment and answers, and India has Most good travel writings on India today, whether by foreigners or plenty…India is a bewilderingly old culture, with myth and history Indians, discover and reveal-sometimes with surprise-the social so intertwined and layered that one knows immediately it cannot be make of the country.No Full Stops in India by Mark Tully being no known nor understood, only experienced.” (XIX) It is this richness exception is a book about India as a place and its people. Born in of experience that lures travelers from across the globe to visit India Calcutta and educated in England, Tully is one of the prominent again and again. Its inherent contrasting character makes it a puzzle travel writers of the world writing about India. Tully being a British for the visitors. But this nation has a dark side too and this evil and a former BBC India correspondent seems to look at India to character of the country also makes it one of the sinister places to explore its politics, society and culture in this book from the point of travel. In this connection they further write: view of the colonizer. One of the recurrent themes of this book is that “It is also a country strained beyond belief with people and India is poised to reach great heights but it should protect its pollution, an incomprehensible bureaucratic labyrinth, and the traditional culture and avoid being subsumed by western calcification of caste structure, laws against it notwithstanding. materialism. It is home to the world's largest movie industry and some of the The book reflects Tully's deep understanding of the attitude of people world's worst living conditions, a place where advanced belonging to different strata of Indian society. He is highly critical of technology and science coexist with crushing poverty and the people of the elite class and puts forward the view that this class disease, where exquisite music and dance and the science of still continues to suffer from the colonial hangover and the ongoing right action live side by side with political corruption and mob cultural imperialism has made the matters even worse. During his violence on a massive scale.” (XX) twenty-five years of stay in this country, he has seen many of the In the past its differences and oddities, so often described, became more obvious relics of colonial rule disappear, but in this book he slightly devalued by time and so did the literature about it. Earlier, suggests that India is still a land dominated by foreign thinking and most foreign writers had a very limited access to the social, cultural, this thinking is just as alien as the brown sahibs. and religious domains of India and travel literature of the past Many people over the centuries undertook journeys to India. It came showed it only as a faceless mass, present but unidentifiable. But under longer, stronger cultural influences from Europe than any other with the advent of globalization and internet in the last few decades, Asian country. More was written about it than any other; more was there has been a spurt of the travel writers coming to India. With the known about it. Foreign writers from a number of nations produced increased awareness, travel writers, both Indian and Foreign have more literature about India than Indians did. Be that Marco Polo, shown an unprecedented interest in it. The travel writers are more Francois, Pyarard de Laval, Vasco de Gama, Pico Iyer, Fanny Parkes, adventurous now and are better equipped to enter these domains of Paul Theroux or Tully, all have translated their experiences in their India. They know it more closely. Despite this India has become travel writings which they acquired here in this country. The even more mysterious as it becomes better known. It has developed Mark Tully's No Full Stops in India: A Study of Colonial Hangover 63 64 Narsingh Jangra even more interest than it already had. The travel writers are now demonstrating a 'writing back'.”(10) Jayati Gupta in her essay, “The fully aware of the fact that despite it being among the most difficult Poetics and Politics of Travel Writing” correlates travel writing with of places to travel, it is the most rewarding. the concept of colonialism and writes, “Todorov traces the evolution of travel writing during the years of European colonial expansion Most good travel writings on India today, whether by foreigners or and identifies characteristics important to the structure of the Indians, discover and reveal-sometimes with surprise-the social European travel narrative. Alterity, i.e. national, cultural, cultural, make up of the country. Their writings portray the social fabric of civilizational differences, negative coding of others and a powerful Indian society in its entirety. Travel writers today have new themes to sense of paternalism define this writing.”(Somdatta Mandal 2010: explore, and their journeys now cover the Indian mind and psyche 31) Europeans travel writers visiting India in the post-colonial period besides places and cultures. Travel literature itself covers a study of feel compelled to produce texts that reflect colonial encounters various fields. In this connection, Peter Hulme and Tim Youngs in especially if the writer happens to be from a country that had been an the introduction to their book, The Cambridge Companion to Travel imperialist power once, and may provide crucial windows to the Writing write, “The subjects of 'race', colonialism, and gender cut remnants of the psyche of the once colonized and the colonizer in the across any single discipline, and within the academy evidence of the post-colonial India. centrality of travel is the spread of its study across several fields.”(9) Recent critical approaches have enabled various travel writers to No Full Stops in India (1992) by Mark Tully, which is a typical explore the places they travel in different critical frame works. One European travel narrative writing, is one of such travel writings as fit such frame work is the operation of colonial discourse. “Orientalism into the above stated assumptions and exhibits a 'writing back,' but it was the first of contemporary criticism to take travel writing as a does so from the perspective of the colonizer in the form of tracing major part of its corpus, seeing it as a body of work which offered the colonial relics in the post-colonial India. Through this paper on particular insight into the operation of colonial discourses.”(8) the above cited book, an attempt is made to explore the assumption Taking a cue from this book scholars have started to scrutinize the that western travel narratives quite often reflect cultural hegemony of discourses present in travel writings in terms of relationship of the West so that the hidden undertones may be exposed and these culture and power. Hulme and Youngs write, “Interest in the role of assumptions manifests itself very clearly in the writer's attempt to travel and exploration literature in contributing to and reflecting the search for colonial relics in the post-colonial India in the form of colonial past has been joined by a growing sophistication of textual colonial hangover. readings based on an understanding of the operation of narrative Born in Calcutta and educated in England, Tully is a former BBC conventions and by an acceptance that claims to truth and objectivity India correspondent and one of the prominent travel writers of the are not always reliable” (9) It is these theories and Edward Said's world writing about India. He being a writer from Britain, which notion that the predominating discourses that have shaped travel stands for the West, seems to look at India to explore its politics, narratives all over the world have been that of imperialism, society and culture in this book from the point of view of the colonialism, class, race, and gender that the present paper is based colonizer. In the garb of a travel writer, Tully looks out for the relics on. of the colonial India that may connect him to his race, culture, and The paper falls under the sub theme 'Travel Writing and the Colonial country which he feels are superior to others and he is able to find Encounter.' It deals with various kinds of attempts to explore the these most prominently in the colonial hangover of the Indian elite. discourse and also to locate the attempts of the colonizer to re- This book, thus, presents remarkable insights into the minds of the engage with the power politics of imperialist discourse. Hulme and privileged elite often represented by the cities and the mind of the Youngs further write, “Like the post-colonial novel, travel texts are once colonizer as well. Some of the revelations that these insights Mark Tully's No Full Stops in India: A Study of Colonial Hangover 65 66 Narsingh Jangra bring to the fore is the colonial hangover of the Indian elite and a big post-colonial India even after more than sixty-five years have passed. divide between the India's Westernized elite and the local traditions The cultural and economic imperialism of the West being the most and how the writer, who is actually a representation of the once important ones draw our attention the most. Consequently, with the colonizer, tries to keep a balance between the two. Tully does it so passage of time this hangover is seeping down to the middle class very cleverly by engaging himself in a rhetoric whereby he though most of the other relics of colonial India have disappeared counteracts his own statement in his discourse. On the one hand, he from India today. This explanation is quite evident when Tully makes takes pride in the fact that the western ideals which are quite often a a very bold statement. He writes: shadow of the mind of the colonizer are far superior to the oriental, “What makes matters worse is the cultural imperialism of the on the other he seems to affirm that these western ideals, howsoever West, an imperialism now strengthened by our success in the superior they are, are not conducive to the betterment of country that remained a colony for a very long period of time. battle with communism. We don't need armies to hold down our modern colonies, we don't need viceroys to administer them on In the book Tully everywhere asserts that in India the western ideals our behalf: our economic might holds them in captivity, and our are often represented by the Indian elite. In the introduction to this apparent success ensures that they accept, if not enjoy, their book, Tully makes an important observation that the elite Indians still slavery. Today most Indians see no alternative to our culture at have not come out of the colonial hangover. He writes: the end of this century, just as their grandparents and great- “India is no longer a land dominated by brown sahibs imitating grandparents saw no alternative to direct colonial rule at the the ways of the white sahibs who used to rule them. India is still start of the century.”(4) a land dominated by foreign thinking, and I would suggest that In this statement Tully is perhaps engaged in a kind of power play. that thinking is just as alien as the 'brown sahibs'. Colonialism He is blaming the cultural imperialism of the west for the survival teaches the native elite it creates to admire - all too often to ape- and sustenance of the colonial hangover in post-colonial India, but in the ways of their foreign rulers. That habit of mind has survived the same breath he is advocating the superiority of the culture of the in Independent India.”(Mark Tully 1991: 3) West and is celebrating the victory of Capitalism over communism There is a general consensus among people in India that the elite in where the former is again a product of the West. India still treat the poor as their subjects as the colonizers did. This idea further gets built up in the power play which Tully further Despite the fact that India is a democracy, there is no transfer of carries on in another statement on the colonial hangover. He writes: power from the elite to the majority who in India are undoubtedly the poor? The elite of India do not want the system to change in favour “The spread of English as an international language has given a of the poor for the fear that they may lose control over the poor and new impetus to this onslaught on the languages of India. The hence lose their privileged position. This fact gets a support from the upper echelons of Indian society regard English as one of the explanation offered by Tully in the introduction when he writes, “I greatest gifts of the British. They have made it the language of believe one of the main reasons is that India's elite have never the exclusive club they belong to, and parents who see half a recovered from their colonial hangover, and so they have not chance of getting their children admitted to the club will make developed the ideology, the attitudes and the institutions which any sacrifice to provide an English-medium education for would change the poor from subjects to partners in the government them… They insist that English must be preserved as the of India.”(3) common language of multilingual India, even though less than 3 per cent of the population has even a basic understanding of Further, there are many factors that are responsible for the survival it.”(8) and sustenance of the colonial hangover of the Indian elite in the Mark Tully's No Full Stops in India: A Study of Colonial Hangover 67 68 Narsingh Jangra

Tully is highly rhetorical when he uses the phrases 'the spread of festivals of Britain and the other countries in India. The festivals English as an international language,' 'English as one of the greatest of India undoubtedly increased interest in things Indian but they gifts of the British,' and 'the language of the exclusive club.' Through had no radical effect on life in our countries. The exhibitions in these phrases it can be easily established that he is suggesting the India were a hard and effective sell to the Indian elite who superiority of his language which is an offshoot of his culture. But to dominate Indian life.”(58) be on defensive side, he is advocating the fact that English is not a favoured language in India. It's very evident here that in Tully's It, therefore, becomes quite evident that the colonial hangover of the imperial discourse on the colonial hangover of the Indians, his elite in India is an agent for the growth of cultural imperialism in remarks support the fact that the Indian elite have not come out of India. their colonial hangover and still foster western mentality. The viewpoint on the colonial hangover of the elite Indians is further In the chapter entitled “The New Imperialism” of this book, Tully reaffirmed when in the same chapter Tully, while on his visit to the indirectly hints at the superiority of his race and culture when he state of Tamil Nadu, writes, “In Tamil Nadu and its capital, Madras, I quotes the celebrated Indian writer Nirad C. Chaudhary, who lived in saw the slogan 'Be Indian, Buy Indian' painted on the side of many Oxford and who dedicated his Autobiography of an Unknown Indian lorries, but unfortunately the Indian elite still prefers to buy to the memory of the British Empire, “All that was good and living 'foreign'.”(68) He further quotes Ramakrishnan, who runs a local within us was made, shaped, and quickened by the same British newspaper in Madras, and writes, “A well-educated Tamil household rule.” (57) The Indian elite share their conviction with the colonizers will happily spend fifty rupees on an English paperback but will not that their culture is inherently superior. This assumption gets think of buying a Tamil book.”(71) Though over the years, the strengthened further by the words of Tully when in the support of his quality of consumer goods made in India has improved and are culture, he claims, “But the Raj could not have survived if we British available in many varieties, yet they have not conquered the Indian had not been convinced of our own superiority, and so few Britons market owing to the modern mental make-up of the Indians. This is could not have ruled so vast a country if they had not also created an due to the effect of the colonial hangover on the mindset of Indians. Indian elite who shared their conviction that British culture was inherently superior to their own.”(57) Here, the idea becomes very In another chapter entitled “The Kumbh Mela,” also, the same idea clear that the Indian elite, which is a byproduct of the Western echoes when Tully quotes Vibhav Bhushan Uphadhaya, a former culture is responsible for the survival of the colonial hangover. attorney general of the state of Uttar Pradesh, who says, “Nowadays, Indians – the better-off Indians – don't seem to accept anything The idea gets further developed in the form that the colonial unless it has a stamp of the west on it. For instance take yoga, which hangover and the cultural imperialism go hand in hand. These two is entirely Indian. It has now become popular again among the elite things are complementary to each other. The colonial hangover of the because it has been taken up in the West.”(114) These statements Indian elite serves an aid to the propagation of the cultural from the pen of Tully amply support the existence of colonial imperialism. This development manifests itself in a remarkable hangover among the elite of the post-colonial India and suggest to example which Tully presents to show how these two factors work the readers the superiority of the West in terms of its culture. Thus, it hand in glove with each other and how the two work in a symbiotic is rightly asserted thatNo Full Stops in India , portrays the colonial relationship for the survival and sustenance of colonial hangover in hangover of the Indian with the view that the hegemony of the post-colonial India. He writes: culture of the West may be established. The fact that the westerners “Over the last ten years or so, India has been persuaded to hold have had a long tradition of undermining others is also substantiated a number of impressive festivals in foreign countries – by the following remarks on the French travel writer Francois significantly, Britain led the field. These were matched by Bernier, who travelled to India at least six times from 1656 to 1668: Mark Tully's No Full Stops in India: A Study of Colonial Hangover 69 Journal of Rajasthan Association for Studies in English10: 70-82 (2014)

“He constantly compared Mughal India with contemporary Europe, generally emphasizing the superiority of the latter. His representation of India works on the modal of binary Changing Poetics of Travel Literature: opposition, where India is presented as the inverse of Europe. He also ordered the perceived differences hierarchically, so that Author to Reader India appeared to be inferior to the Western world.” (Themes in Indian History – Part II 2010: 130) Rajpal Works Cited Historically, 'Travel Literature' has contributed to the development of Hulme, Peter and Tim Youngs. Ed. The Cambridge Companion to Travel natural philosophy of Bacon, Locke and Boyle. Similarly, it has been Writing. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2002. Print. researched under the rubric of Feminism (e.g. Women Travelers in Mandal, Somdatta.Indian Travel Narratives . Jaipur: Rawat, 2010. Print. Colonial India: The Power of the Female Gaze by Indira Ghose); O'Reilly, James and Larry Habegger. Ed.Travelers' Tales India. Palo Alto: Postcolonial Theory (e.g. English Travel Writing: From Pilgrimages Solas House, Inc., 2004. Print. to Postcolonial Explorations by Barbara Korte); and Comparative Themes in Indian History – Part II. Delhi: NCERT, 2010. Print. Literature. The richness of 'Travel Writing' promises us to contribute Tully, Mark.No Full Stops in India . New Delhi: Penguin,1991. Print. in the development of recent buzz of academia (i.e. Popular Cultural Studies). This potential of travel literature can best be discerned through the fact that 'Travel Literature' is cross-cultural or transnational in its original coloring. It can offer us a critical prism to analysis popular culture if we expand our horizon of the term. Here, the expansion of our horizon implies what Roland Barthes terms as 'the death of the author'1 . Though, he declared the death of the author in the year 1967, yet even today 'Travel Literature' is not free from the clutches of the figure of the author. From its inception it has been defined as a record of an author's experiences while travelling for pleasure. But the attention should be shifted to issues such as what the reader reads while traveling, why does s/he read it, what are the cultural connotations of his or her choice. The proposed research paper is also an attempt to discuss such concerns. It accentuates on reading while travelling not on writing while travelling. It undertakes the study of popular Indian English fiction that is read largely while traveling in connection to the whole cultural psychodynamics of its readers. 'Traveling' is one of the contexts in which travelers prefer the reading of popular fiction. They read it because of several numbers of reasons. One among these is this that popular narratives do not propel the readers into the philosophical questions. They are the narratives spun around the common fantasies of individuals. Changing Poetics of Travel Literature: Author to Reader 71 72 Rajpal

Highlighting the same fact Scott McCracken mentions: “Some of my May Concern, entraps Ali towards the end of the novel. Thus the happiest experiences reading popular fiction have been on trains” writer has given a postmodernist dimension to the female characters. (1). This follows that both desire and fantasy are common factors in Here the 'construct' of man being active and women being passive popular Indian English fiction. The mass market fiction is a fertile has been de-constructed. As a true postmodernist, the writer has ground for fantasy setting. For example one may take Rahul Saini's blurred the boundaries of gender roles. The writer denies the fixity of novelJust Like In the Movies . The novel comprises of so many identification. Here the stereotypical identifications float freely. This scenes of fantastic setting. The most powerful among these is the free floating of identities complicates the relationship between the 'Storeroom Scene', depicted in the chapter entitled “Rimy – She is in reader and the text. Love” (22). In this chapter Rimy fantasizes to make out with Vinnie, Freud's essay “A Child Being Beaten” provides significant critical her colleague, in her dream. The fantasy of making out with him, in store room, exhibits in her dream as she herself says “I always insights to explore the partial and temporal identifications made imagined it to happen in the store” (23). In order to make heroine's within the scene of fantasy. In this essay Freud describes how the sex dream a reality the writer gives a realistic touch to the dream in the of child and the figure of the bitter are not fixed, but instead are following lines: changeable. If the reader does not identify solely with living as trapped victim, but instead reads metaphorically, then it might be Hmm. Will this be the day? Should I make the first move? I possible to participate in a fantasy where Rimmy really wants to be may have that dream for a reason today. Yes! I am doing it trapped with a man she desires. The heroine invites her male today. Not like doing it, doing it and fulfilling my fantasy (26). counterpart in a very stubborn manner through the following words: This incident is the deliberate plantation by the writer. He describes Hey, Listen, I was just thinking….the store room, it is so this incident as a well practiced protocol of popular writing (i.e.; unorganized. I was thinking we should do something about it. wish-fulfillment). Thus this text may be understood as a setting for You know, yesterday I went there to get some old files and it desire. The 'store room' is both a 'realistic' and a fantasy setting. The was so dark and …You should come with me there someday. I realistic or metonymic mode depicts the 'dark place' as a kind of trap, would show you … (26). in which Rimmy desires to make out with her unresponsive male- counterpart. In the fantasy the dark place or store room can be Through the depiction of such scenes the writer provides his/her understood in a number of different ways. Reading in the metaphoric readers a setting of fantasy. Some of the reasons behind the mode the store room symbolizes the deep and dark unconscious of introduction of these elements in popular Indian English fiction and the heroine. The store room gains the symbolic value of heroine's subsequently its selection for 'travel reading' can be speculated thus: stored libidinal desires. At the same time it may be interpreted as an (a) Fantastic and romantic elements give secret pleasure to object of desire. Alternatively, the store room as warm interior space individuals. Therefore, any writing comprising such elements has a could signify the womb and regression to an infantile sexuality that huge profitable market. But here it would not be pertinent to state holds the promise of total satisfaction. The crucial factor here is the that the elements of romance and fantasy exist in popular Indian relationship between the reader and text. If the text is understood in English fiction to target market alone. Apart from marketing terms of the reader's identification with Rimmy, then the store room strategies there are other motivating factors which inspire the popular appears to exhibit the stereotypical role of feminity. In this writers to include the elements of romance and fantasy in their interpretation, the feminine reader/heroine assumes a passive writings. (b) Writing of novel to these writers is like a Freudian function in relation to the active male hero. However here in the dream and lastly there could be a relationship of reciprocity with present context the heroine is active as she is taking initiatives to Bollywood movies. Bollywood movies feed popular imagination in a make out with the hero. Similarly, Diviya, the heroine of To Whom It big way. Changing Poetics of Travel Literature: Author to Reader 73 74 Rajpal

Popular Indian English fiction has a soothing effect both on readers This shows that popular Indian English fiction gives expression not and writers. It releases their pent up emotions. The writers of popular only to the desire but also the frustration of the youth. Shariqu Iqbal's fiction use writing as Freudian dreams. Through his/her writing a national best-seller,To Whom It May Concern, is very significant in writer achieves what s/he struggles to achieve or what s/he does not this regard. The writer selects “Priya's home” (2), actually a brothel, achieve in real life. Through writing the writers fulfill their as well as for the opening scene of the novel. The opening chapter, entitled the desires of the readers. They fantasize their careers, ambitions and “Don't drink and drive…Smoke weed and fly!” describes that the so on and so forth. For example, one may quote the following lines narrator gets up from his deep slumber at 10pm, after sleeping for from the national best-selling author of Those Small Lil Things' one night and the whole day. He sleeps so long as he smokes novelJust Like In the Movies : marijuana with his friends Raghu and Sandy last night at the brothel. After getting up he lits a Wills Navy-Cut cigarette and recollects: ……….! Oh, I feel so proud to have such friends. This friend, she is going to become a famous writer. And Amit, he will also Celebrating the end of our theory exams on the very same day, or searching a reason perhaps, we decided to come to 'Priya's soon figure out what kind of celebrity he wants to become. And home' and fly….Well virtually fly by smoking weed that is (3). I, I will be happy being a pop star. We are so going to rock! We are going to make headlines, be all over Page 3. Just like they All the three friends study at Bangalore College of Engineering. show in the movies (25). Further there are constant references to “Sutta-point” (15) where these Engineering-students frequently visit. Ali, the narrator of the These lines stem out of the characters' inordinate will to be central novel, explains this ritualized visit in the following words: figures at Page 3. This fantasy takes themselves away from the realities and difficulties of life. They seek the easy escape from this Adhering to my after-exam schedule, I went to the Sutta-point, world. They fantasize to live a filmic life as they quote a line to relieve a compressed chunk of computer codes clotted into repeatedly (i.e. “Everything is going to be just like they show in the my mind. To mix it up with the Navy-Cut smoke and release it movies!”) (57). But their escape is very akin to the escape of the from the chimney of my mouth (15). romantic poet John Keats who tries to take a flight from this world to Ankur Dahiya also commences his novel with the chapter entitled the world of 'Nightingale' and to that of 'Psyche' but realizing the “Beer, Girls and Flashback” (1). In this chapter he describes the actualities of life who returns to this world. The lines quoted above scene in which three friends named Rohit, Adarsh and Rehaan drink stand in stark opposition to the following, where a character from the beer. They are sitting in the top row of the stadium and it is around same novel sympathies over her as well as her friends' bad luck: 10 p.m. This place is termed by them as “Shanti Sthal” (3), (peaceful place). Thus, looking at these two contexts one draws a conclusion God! Just look at us!” I say, “What is wrong with us? How old that the frustrated youth seeks relief in drinking or smoking instead are we? 23? ...24? I stammer as I look at Rishi- she is the oldest of facing the challenge of their studies. Reading such a literature of us all. “We should be bursting with energy. We should be … definitely relives the readers from the boredom of traveling and at the top of the world. Full of ideas. That is how strong the entertains them by providing them the 'masala' stuff. power of youth is. And instead we feel all sloppy and … drained and … old! (81). The significance of Freud's contribution to modern psychology lies in emphasis on the unconscious aspects of the human psyche. Freud Thus the would-be-Page 3 heroes, who fantasize a glamorous life on provides convincing evidence, through his many carefully recorded page number twenty five of the novel, are disappointed to the fullest. case studies, that most of our actions are motivated by psychological In the above quote their disappointment reaches a crescendo. Changing Poetics of Travel Literature: Author to Reader 75 76 Rajpal forces over which we have limited control. He demonstrates that, comes to know that Kamana is in danger of being kidnapped as a like the iceberg, the human mind is structured so that its great weight case of landed property, between Kamana's father and Mr. Pandey's and density lie beneath the surface (below the level of younger brother, is going on. In his dream, he sees a black consciousness). In “The Anatomy of the Mental Personality”, Freud complexion muscular man pulling Kamana out of her car and discriminates between the levels of conscious and unconscious throwing her into the “Red Omni Van” (78) of the hooligans. On mental activity.2 In his opinionthe purest expression of an individual's seeing all this taking place in front of his eyes Rehaan starts Parsant's unconscious, real self, is his/her dream. This Freudian premise gives bike and follows the gangsters keeping “only one thing in his (my) profound clues toward solving a work's thematic and symbolic mind i.e. his (my) love is in danger and he (I) will screw anybody mysteries. In the context of popular Indian English fiction the dream who harms her in anyway” (79). In this dream, Rehaan attempts to description proves a significant literary device to dissect the show that he is superior to a hero of a Hindi movie through the pervasive popular culture. For example, Ankur Dahiya, in his novel following utterances: 20 & Still aVergin Virgin?!!, gives ten dream descriptions. In the 1. “Usually in Hindi movies there is always a window at the second chapter of the novel, entitled “Dreams, Introduction and the back side of the villain's place but here there is none at all” Black sheep in the Herd” (5), he mentions the first dream that goes (80). like this: 2. Also in Hindi movies, hero finds out some rope or other I am lying on a not so comfortable bed in a dilapidated or means in such kind of a situation. Here I am about to hang ramshackle room. Cigarette smoke is all around and nothing is in the middle with one of my foot in the hole on the wall and the other on one of the loose branches. I grabbed few visible. A girl is lying with me under a blanket with her face 3 bushes in my hand and was about to give up, suddenly few hidden under my arm. She is grabbing my vest with her hand. bad thoughts about Kamana came to my mind and I went My right hand is moving back and forth on her back for making beyond my limits and somehow reached the top (81). her feel comfortable. I crushed the half burnt cigarette on the table nearby. I then kiss her cheeks again... (5). 3. ….. But this is not a movie where I will do a surprise entry by crashing through a few not so strong glasses and tackle This dream description provides the readers some insight into the these bulky gangsters alone. In a movie or in action games unconscious of the narrator. Here one comes to know that his generally hero gets some weapon or at least an iron rod, but libidinal desires are very powerful. This reference to the hero's what I got here is a plastic water pipe (83). sexual desire becomes more intensified when he wakes up and These extracts from his long dream exhibit Rehaan's inordinate declares, “Damn! The same old dream, which I have seen two-three desire to project himself, in front of the readers, as a great hero who times before also.” (5) The second description of the dream has been is less influenced by Hindi movies. He attempts to show that here the mentioned in the third chapter of the novel entitled “Love, situation is worse than that in a Hindi movie. However he acts nightmares and Mathematics”. Here in this dream Rehaan sees his intelligently and finally saves Kamana. Here, Ankur Dahiya shares a 'Angel' Sandhya. The writer depends too much on this technique. The lot with the traditional travel writers who give detailed account of eighth chapter of the novel entitled “The Heroine, the Villain and their crusades and struggle while traveling. Dahiya equates Rehaan Entry of the Hero” comprises a dream description that runs with the adventurous heroes of 'Travel Literature'. To illustrate this throughout the chapter roughly around in seventeen pages. In this sharp polarity it would be pertinent to mention this pictorial dream he meets one of his classmates named Sneha. Through her, he juxtaposition: Changing Poetics of Travel Literature: Author to Reader 77 78 Rajpal

realities of their psyche. Secondly, the use of the phrase: 'To Whom It May Concern' stems from writer's intention of making it a must read for all. Here, Iqbal shares Theodor Adorno's basic thesis of popular culture. Adorno opines that popular culture that is largely a culture industry attempts to include every one (101). In the next dream he is haunted by the fear of class-bunking. The fifth dream is a repeated dream that he sees in the second chapter (i.e. “I am lying on a not so comfortable bed… (149). In his sixth dream, he sees that Nandini's marriage taking place whom his friend Rohit loves so much. As a result, Rohit as a frustrated and rejected lover, bids his friends farewell. In his dream Rehaan imagines that “Aadarsh and he (I) are crying, that was Rohit's soul talking to us as Rohit is no more in this world” (152). In his seventh dream, he fantasizes a “fabulous foreplay cum circus” (164) with Shefali. After this, they do “something that people call “pre-marital Sex” (164). In his eighth dream, he imagines to make out with Nelisha. But his possibilities of making out are postponed as her brother comes in-- between. He sees himself running in underwear. Nelisha's brother (A pictorial juxtaposition between the front page of Madagascar Manoj follows him having a gun in his hand. The ninth dream is andTo Whom It May Concern ) once again the same repeated one (i.e.; “I am lying on a not so comfortable bed in a dilapidated or ramshackle room (220). The The discourse analysis of Peter Tyson's novel: Madagascar: The novel ends with the following dream: Eighth Continent- Life, Death & Discovery in A Lost World gives us a hint that the novel is about the natural and cultural history of there is crowd on both sides of the ramp, as fashion week is Madagascar. Here, a subtle mixture of images and inscriptions is going on. The moment I step onto the ramp, audience applauds significant. The cover contains the images of 'monkey-like Lemur', in excitement. I am wearing a designer black shining suit and 4 walking on the ramp. I am the show topper of the event (278). 'Ostrich' and that of a 'Baobab' tree . These images give a glimpse of the natural life of Madagascar. On the other hand, the image of a If one look at these dream descriptions closely, one may draw a woman carrying a bundle of wooden sticks on her head and the trajectory that runs throughout this dream sequence: Expression of image of a nicked man is suggestive of the pervasive tribal culture of sexual desire Fear of kamana's kidnapFear of bunking the classFear Madagascar. The inscription of the word 'discovery' gives it a of frustrated friend's death Foreplay with ShefaliFantasy of making mysterious touch as a hallmark of adventure story. The novelist out with Nelisha The desire of becoming show topper. This trajectory aspires to be a discoverer like Columbus while naming Madagascar may be abbreviated thus: Sexual desireFearAspiration. Looking at the 'Eighth Continent'. On the contrary, the cover page of Shariq this trajectory through Freudian prism one deciphers that his mental Iqbal's novel To Whom It May Concern depicts an infinite road with condition constitutes fear, sexual desire and lastly the aspiration. In the picture of two lovers. The use of colour 'red' and 'black' is also this trajectory, the aspiration comes towards the end. This is very significant to look at. Red stands for the passion and sexuality suggestive of Rehaan's priorities. His first desire is to get his sexual of the lovers and the use of 'black' connotes the deep and dark desires satisfied. Before the last dream description, he fulfils his Changing Poetics of Travel Literature: Author to Reader 79 80 Rajpal most haunted dream. This dream becomes the reality when he novelists are not even prepared to inject semantic thickness in easy describes the most haunted dream with the variation of one word: flow of the narrative. I am lying on a not so comfortable bed in a dilapidated or Walter Benjamin in an essay entitled “Detective Novels, Read on ramshackle room… Amulya is lying with me under a blanket Journeys” attempts to capture the totality of the experience of with her face hidden under my arm. She is grabbing my vest reading a popular narrative on a train. He begins by describing the with her hand…I then kiss her cheeks again... (274). pleasure involved in the act of buying a work of popular fiction at a railway station. But he goes on to describe the purchase as a kind of The lines quoted here are different from the lines quoted from the page number five of the novel in two ways. First: on page number ritualized act. Since the nineteenth century, the railways have been five of the novel these lines are written to describe a dream but here, used as a symbol of the alienation we feel in the grab of gigantic these lines are written to describe reality. Second: whereas on page system of modernity. Benjamin observes railways as a representative number five the writer gives a mysterious touch to his dream by the of 'giant machine' that is a metaphor of the contemporary world in use of the line: 'A girl is lying with me...' But here 'A girl' is replaced which the readers of popular fiction exist. For Benjamin, the railway journey is the optimal site for travel reading. He mentions that with 'Amulya'. This description of fulfilling the dream here is 5 significant from two perspectives. First it is important from the initially 'railway novel' has enjoyed the status of bestseller . Now sequential point of view. The writer fulfills his dream before he with the passage of time, this 'railway novel' is being referred as dreams of becoming the show topper. This suggests that the campus novel, pulp literature, cult literature or popular fiction. teenagers' first priority is the satisfaction of their libidinal desires. However, adhering to the context of its origin its functions is the They are aspirants only after quenching their thrust of lust. From same (e.g. wish-fulfillment). The sociologist Anthony Giddens Freudian point of view also it sounds well. This effective use of opines: dream description, to exhibit the psyche of the youth, seems a Modern society is characterized by large, impersonal, 'self- deliberate effort of Ankur Dahiya as he refers to the theories of referential systems'. These systems, like railways, are 'largely Sigmund Freud twice in this novel. Referring to Freud he makes two autonomous and determined by their own constitutive significant statements: - (a) “…..If I trust Sigmund Freud, Anand influences (Giddens, 5) possesses some gay characteristics” (102), and (b) Referring to his first lecture at IMSAR M.D.U. Rohtak, Rehaan describes that Dr. He articulates that in such a condition the self is beset by doubts. Singh comes to take their class. He comes and writes 'Sex and Caught up in the anonymity of railway system, the self starts to Aggression' as the topic of his lecture. Defining management he shatter. At this juncture popular narratives which are always brimful quotes the ideas of Sigmund Freud: of 'masala' stuff and the elements of 'fantasy' tell us much about who we are and about the society in which we live. The Russian writer “Sigmund Freud said that these are two animals instincts Osip Mandelstam writes: “It is terrifying to think that our life is a present in human beings, and are the root cause of every tale without a plot or a hero, made out of desolation and glass, out of problem in our society. Now, how far you are able to manage the feverish babble of constant digressions (quoted in Marshall these two that is management” (158). Berman, 174).” Popular fiction, from 'railway novel' to 'folk tales' However, the 'dream sequences' in popular fiction are not as chaotic and fairy tales to popular ballads to modern best-sellers, has always or dispersed as one encounters in the fiction of mainstream novelists provided a structure within which our lives can best be understood. such as Joyce or Faulkner. The dreams are well structured and there Popular fiction has the capacity to provide us with a workable sense is neither high degree of displacement nor condensation in their of self. It can alleviate the terror described by Mandelstam. It can narrative make-up. The symbolic richness is missing, and the Changing Poetics of Travel Literature: Author to Reader 81 82 Rajpal give our lives the plots and heroes they lack. Thus the practice of Berman, Marshall. All That Is Solid Melts into Air: The Experiences of engaging oneself in the reading of popular fiction, while traveling in Modernity. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1982. Print. particular, bespeaks volumes about the emptiness of contemporary Dahiya, Ankur.20 And Still aVergin Vergin?!!?. New Delhi: gbd books, culture. It exhibits the demand of 'masala' stuff that quenches the 2010. Print. taste of popular imagination. Freud, Sigmund. “A Child Being Beaten”. New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis. New York: Norton, 1964. Print. Notes ------. “Anatomy of Mental Personality”. New Introductory Lectures on 1. “Death of the Author” is a 1967 essay by the French critic and Psychoanalysis. New York: Norton, 1964. Print. theorist and Barthes. Here, in the easy he argues against the Ghose, Indira. Women Travelers in Colonial India: The Power of the traditional criticism that relies on the figure of the author. In this Female Gaze . Print. type of criticism, the experiences and biases of the author serve Giddens, A. Modernity and Self Identity: Self and Society in the Late as a definitive "explanation" of the text. Barthes considers it Modern Age. Cambridge: Polity, 1991. Print such type of criticism sloppy as he says: "To give a text an Iqbal, Shariq.To Whom It May Concern: love.. luck.. my bad !. New Delhi: Author" and assign a single, corresponding interpretation to it Srishti, 2011. Print. "is to impose a limit on that text." Korte, Barbara. English Travel Writing: From Pilgrimages to Postcolonial 2. For a full account of how Freud's essay has been used to Explorations . Print. understand the incomplete identifications available in fantasy, McCracken, Scott.Pulp: Reading Popular Fiction . Manchester: Manchester see Jean Laplanche and Jean-Bertrand Pontails, 'Fantasy and the UP, 1998. Print. Origins of Sexuality,' in V. Burgin, J.Donald, and C. Kaplan Saini, Rahul.Just Like In The Movies. New Delhi: Srishti, 2010. Print. (eds),Formations of Fantasy (London, Routledge, 1989), pp.5- Tyson, Peter. Madagascar: The Eighth Continent Life, Death and Discovery 34. For an outstanding reading of a popular text that employs in a Lost World. Boston: Bradt, 2000. Print. this approach see 'The Thorn Birds: Fiction, Fantasy, Feminity' , Chapter 6 of Kaplan's, Sea Change. 3. See the underlined words in comparison to the underlined words at page no ten. 4. TheAvenue or Alley of the Baobabs is a prominent group of 'Baobab' trees in western Madagascar. Its striking landscape captivates the interest of the travelers from around the world. Steps have been taken to get its recognition as the 'first natural monument'. 5. The first recorded reference to the use of the term “Railway novel' in the Oxford English Dictionary is found in the year: 1871, but Charles Dickens mentions railway novels in Dombey and Son in 1848. Works Cited Adorno, T.W.Culture Industry . Ed. J.M. Bernstein. London: Routledge, 2001. Print. Journal of Rajasthan Association for Studies in English10: 83-88 (2014) 84 Rukhsana Saifee

literature is a popular genre of published work today. Travel literature may be cross-cultural or transnational in focus, or may involve travel to different regions within the same country. Readers Travel Writing and the Medieval are generally seeking the exotic, the other, the different in the places Ages-Ibn Battuta they explore in literary mode. Travel literature is defined as the narrative accounts written about an Rukhsana Saifee individual or group's encounter with another place. These writings, also referred to as travelogues, recount in detail the writer's As a genre, travel literature is as diverse as the culture, place, or experiences and perceptions of that place. Travel literature, however, people through the eyes of the writer. Readers are generally seeking should not be confused with travel guides, which provide readers the exotic, the other, the different in the places they explore in with more pragmatic information about a specific place. Where literary mode. The travel genre was a fairly common genre in travel guides are informative, travel literature is descriptive, and the medieval Arabic literature. Though his prose may not have been the two overlap to some extent. As a genre, travel literature is as diverse most exhilarating, Ibn Battuta established the science which would as the cultures, places, and peoples that span the globe. The travel eventually become the art of travel writing. Along his journey, he literature let the reader experience a particular culture, place, or recorded copious observations, notes, insights, and lessons. This people through the eyes of the writer. magnum opus was preserved by the young scribe who spent many months transcribing Ibn Battuta's story, ultimately compiling al-Rihla Like so much literature in the middle ages, Medieval writing about in 1355. Abu Abdullah Muhammad Ibn Abdullah Al Lawati Al Tanji travel drew much from its own inbuilt literary culture, which Ibn Battuta was born in 1304 in Morocco's northern port of Tangier, included embellishing the plain observations of travellers with during the reign of the Marinid dynasty. This famous 14th century material which had been handed down through chains of copying Muslim traveller left Tangier, his birthplace, on Thursday, 2nd Rajab from Classical authors or oral tradition. Factual accounts could be 725 [June 14, 1325], being at that time twenty-two years of age, with larded with fiction and fantasy drawn from oral tradition or other the intention of making the Pilgrimage to the Holy House [at literary sources. It is undoubtedly true that a great many people, Mecca]. In nearly 30 years on the road, Ibn Battuta traversed North possible most ordinary rural or town dwellers may have been born, Africa, Egypt, and the Swahili coast; reached Mecca on the Arabian lived and died in the same place. However, there were groups of Peninsula, passing through Palestine and Greater Syria en route; people who did travel, and given the conditions of the time, they swung through Anatolia and Persia to Afghanistan; crossed the travelled most adventurously and sometimes very far. Himalayas to India, then Sri Lanka and the Maldives; and reached the eastern coast of China before turning around and zigzagging all Early examples of travel literature include Pausanias' Description of the way back to Morocco. Ibn Battuta was the only medieval Greece in the 2nd century CE, and the travelogues of Ibn Jubayr traveller who is known to have visited the lands of every Muslim (1145–1214) and Ibn Battuta (1304–1377), both of whom recorded ruler of his time. The mere extent of his travels is estimated at no less their travels across the known world in detail. The travel genre was a than 75,000 miles. Ibn Battuta was indeed the greatest traveller to fairly common genre in medieval Arabic literature. Though his prose ever walk the earth. may not have been the most exhilarating, Ibn Battuta established the Everyone travels at some time, and the act of going on a journey is, science which would eventually become the art of travel writing. in some form, one of the fundamental experiences of human life, just Along his journey, he recorded copious observations, notes, insights, as it is a common metaphor for individual human life itself. Journeys and lessons. When Ibn Battuta finally returned to Morocco in the are the subject of just about every literary genre in existence. Travel early 1350s, he was commissioned by Abu Inan Faris, the sultan of Travel Writing and the Medieval Ages-Ibn Battuta 85 86 Rukhsana Saifee

Morocco, to produce an account of his travels. Ibn Battuta then Himalayas to India, then Sri Lanka and the Maldives; and reached dictated his story to the poet Ibn Juzayy al-Kalbi.This magnum opus the eastern coast of China before turning around and zigzagging all was preserved by the young scribe who spent many months the way back to Morocco. Ibn Battuta was the only medieval transcribing Ibn Battuta's story, ultimately compilingAl-Rihla in traveller who is known to have visited the lands of every Muslim 1355. Its dictation was finished on 3rd Dhu'l-hijja 756 [December 9, ruler of his time. The mere extent of his travels is estimated at no less 1355]. than 75,000 miles, a figure which is not likely to have been surpassed before the age of steam. In spite of the fact that Marco The full title of the book of his journeys is Tuhfat al-anzar fi gharaaib Polo (1254-1324) is much better known outside the Arab world, in al-amsar wa ajaaib al-asfar, but it is commonly referred to as Ibn fact Ibn Battuta traveled much more widely. Over the space of 29 ḥ years from 1325 to 1354, he covered some 75,000 miles, or about , اﻟﺮﺣﻠﺔ) Battuta's Rihla (rihla means journey). Ar-Rihla, or, Ri lah literally "Journey") is a Classical Arabic term of a quest, with 120,000 kilometers-three times the distance around the Earth at the connotations of a voyage undertaken for the sake of divine Equator. He met many dangers and had many adventures along the knowledge of Islam. It is also a form of travel literature based upon way. He was attacked by bandits, almost drowned in a sinking ship, the travel practice originated in Middle Ages Morocco and served to was almost beheaded by a tyrant ruler, and had a few marriages and connect Muslims of Morocco to the collective consciousness of the lovers and fathered several children on his travels! ummah across the Islamic world, thereby generating a larger sense of community.The performance of Rihla was considered in Moorish al- There is no indication that Ibn Battuta made any notes during his Andalus as a qualifier for teachers and political leaders. This journey twenty-nine years of travels. When he came to dictate an account of also coincided with the end of the Mongol invasions and a new them, he had to rely on memory and manuscripts produced by earlier opportunity for Islamic expansion. travellers. When describing Damascus, Mecca, Medina and some other places in the Middle East, Ibn Juzayy clearly copied passages Abu Abdullah Muhammad Ibn Abdullah Al Lawati Al Tanji Ibn from the 12th-century account by Ibn Jubayr. Similarly, most of Ibn th Battuta was born on 25 February 1304 in Morocco's northern port Juzayy's descriptions of places in Palestine were copied from an of Tangier, during the reign of the Marinid dynasty. He claimed account by the 13th-century traveller Muhammad al-Abdari. descent from the Berber tribe known as the Lawata. As a young man Nevertheless, though potentially fictional in places, the Rihla he would have studied at a Sunni Maliki madh'hab, (Islamic provides an important account of much of the 14th-century world. jurisprudence school), the dominant form of education in North Africa at that time. Wise beyond his years, at an early age he For centuries his book was obscure, even within the Muslim world, shortened his name to Ibn Battuta. This famous 14th century Muslim but in the early 19th century extracts were published in German and traveller left Tangier, his birthplace, on Thursday, 2nd Rajab 725 English based on manuscripts discovered in the Middle East, [June 14, 1325], being at that time twenty-two years of age [22 lunar containing abridged versions of Ibn Juzayy's Arabic text. During the years; 21 and 4 months by solar reckoning], with the intention of French occupation of Algeria in the 1830s five manuscripts were making the Pilgrimage to the Holy House [at Mecca] and the Tomb discovered in Constantine, including two that contained more of the Prophet [at Medina]. complete versions of the text.[83] These manuscripts were brought back to the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris and studied by French The Journey scholars Charles Defrémery and Beniamino Sanguinetti. From 1853 In nearly 30 years on the road, Ibn Battuta traversed North Africa, they published a series of four volumes containing the Arabic text, Egypt, and the Swahili coast; reached Mecca on the Arabian extensive notes and a translation into French.[84] Defrémery and Peninsula, passing through Palestine and Greater Syria en route; Sanguinetti's printed text has now been translated into many other swung through Anatolia and Persia to Afghanistan; crossed the Travel Writing and the Medieval Ages-Ibn Battuta 87 88 Rukhsana Saifee languages while Ibn Battuta has grown in reputation and is now a Jump up ^ "Journey to Mecca OMNIMAX Movie at the St. Louis Science well-known figure. Center". St. Louis Science Center. Retrieved October 31, 2010. Nehru, Jawaharlal. Glimpses of World History. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1989. Ibn Battuta himself stated according to Ibn Juzayy that: After outlining the extensive route of Ibn Battuta's Journey, Nehru “ I have indeed - praise be to God - attained my desire in this world, notes: "This is a record of travel which is rare enough today with our which was to travel through the Earth, and I have attained this many conveniences.... In any event, Ibn Battuta must be amongst the great travellers of all time." honour, which no ordinary person has attained.” Even before the term existed, Ibn Battuta lived as a true "Renaissance man." A Ross E. Dunn, The Adventures of Ibne Battuta: A Muslim Traveller of the Fourteenth Century. New York: California UP, 1986. Print. trained qadi, or judge, Ibn Battuta was also proficient in geography, botany, Islamic theology, and possessed a social scientist's shrewd Eletronic Publications capacities of observation. But the primary reason Ibn Battuta lives on A Tangerine in Delhi – Saudi Aramco World article by Tim Mackintosh- today is his writing In an era when precious few possessed the Smith (March/April 2006). means, the time, or the courage to submit to curiosity and venture off Google Books – link to a 2004 reissue of Gibb's 1929 translation. the map's edge, Ibn Battuta set out to complete Islam's traditional Ibn Battuta, Travels in Asia and Africa 1325-1354, tr. and ed. H. A. R. Gibb pilgrimage to Mecca, and ultimately spent the better part of his life (London: Broadway House, 1929) wandering. One Man's Odyssey – Heather Jones, 2011. A TIME graphic comparing the journey of Ibn Battutah with Zheng He and Marco Polo. The Travels of Ibn Battuta are the inspiration for the travel blogs, The Longest Hajj: The Journeys of Ibn Battuta – Saudi Aramco World which seeks to follow the example set by history's greatest itinerant, article by Douglas Bullis (July/August 2000). traveling to little known or misunderstood places and bringing the Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to Ibn Battuta stories of those places and their inhabitants to life. Ibn Battuta was indeed the greatest traveller to ever walk the earth. Works Cited André, Wink. Al-Hind , The Slave Kings and the Islamic Conquest 11th- 13th Centuries, Volume 2 of Al-Hind: The Making of the Indo-Islamic World. The Slave Kings and the Islamic Conquest 11th-13th Centuries, (BRILL, 2002), p.229. Print. Gibb, H.A.R. Ed.The Travels of Ibn Baṭṭū ṭ a, A.D. 1325–1354. vol. 1. London: Hakluyt Society, 1958. Print. Gibb, H.A.R.; Beckingham, Ed. The Travels of Ibn Baṭṭū ṭ a, A.D. 1325–1354 Vol.4 London: Hakluyt Society, 1994. Print. Hrbek, Ivan. "The chronology of Ibn Battuta's travels", Archiv Orientalni 30 (1962): 409–486. Print Hunwick, O, John. "The mid-fourteenth century capital of Mali", Journal of African History 14 (1973): 195–208. Print. Jerry Bently. Old World Encounters: Cross-Cultural Contacts and Exchanges in Pre-Modern Times. New York: Oxford UP, 1993. Print. Journal of Rajasthan Association for Studies in English10: 89-94 (2014) 90 Sarita Chanwaria

An Engineer by profession, Dev Prasad, the author of this wonderful travelogue has a wide range of interests including traveling and The Eternal Journey of Krishna: mythology and the success of his work finds authenticity when we realize that while his visits, he is chatting with the reader, sharing his Revisiting the Past and Exploring the Present experiences and providing much to the thoughtful reader to ponder about. He has an eye for detail and can simultaneously and Sarita Chanwaria and Mamta Chanwaria accurately convey even the ambience of the place. The book opens with legends of Lord Krishna's appearance and acts Travel is a basic human instinct, coded into our genes from an on this earth. He is considered to be the eighth incarnation of Lord evolutionary past, when migration was an essential form of survival. Vishnu, the only poorna- avatar. The author begins describing the Today, when our lives do not necessarily depend on setting out in Brij Bhoomi which consists of 12 forests (vanas) and 24 groves search of greener pastures or happier hunting grounds, the purpose of (upvanas) and all of them are places of pilgrimage. Mathura is the travel has become more nuanced and varied. Be it quest for knowledge, heart of Brij Bhoomi and the 'parikrama' of Brij Bhoomi is spirit of adventure, propagation of knowledge, pilgrimage, earning of performed by the devotees with great zeal and devotion. bread or simple wander-lust, all have prompted and promoted man to travel. Travel literature covers every inch and instinct of human life Embedded in history and legend is an eternal love story of Lord and human thought. Its horizon spreads from earth to space- from the Krishna and His divine consort Radha, Herself an illusive figure. Brij highest mountains to the deepest oceans, from historical places to Bhoomi narrates the divine love tale between the two. People here aesthetic destinations, expressing and depicting great artistic skills believe that one can reach Krishna only through Radha. and vivid descriptions of the traveller. Travel has been a major theme of literature and we have a long tradition of travel literature in India The author begins his journey from Mathura, one of the holiest which has also been an important source of history. Every nook and places in India, since it is the birthplace of Krishna. There are two corner of the country has been trodden and has become a source of temples connected to the exact birthplace of Krishna and the impassionate curiosity and educative value. controversy still exists whether Krishna was born in the temple the author visited first, or, the other one known as the Yogmaya Temple. Dev Prasad's 'Krishna: A Journey through The Lands And Legends There are various paintings and pictures adorning the walls of these Of Krishna' is a travelogue-but with a difference. It makes the reader temples depicting the legendary acts of Sri Krishna. The 'Potara dwell in two periods simultaneously- the present as we accompany Kund' and the 'Dwarkadheesh Temple' are worth visiting in Mathura. the author on his visits to holy places of Lord Krishna and the past as the story of Krishna takes us back centuries ago and bring us face to The eternal journey of Krishna commences as an infant when face with our glorious mythological heritage. The book describes the Vasudev carries Him in the basket across Yamuna on the eventful well known tourist places and narrates the famous legends associated rainy night when the Supreme Lord descended on this planet. with them. It also unfolds many legends and discover places which “paritranaya sadhunam vinashaya cha dushkritam, are yet unknown to the common man. In the true sense, it is a Dharma sansthapanarthaya sambhavami yuge yuge” beautiful concoction of a travelogue with mythological reminiscences. The book provides the reader a fascinating, joyous and spiritually (To save the pious people and eliminate the evil and to re-establish igniting travel opportunity. To see and experience the land of God, righteousness and principles firmly, I appear millennium after the place He once occupied and spent His life, and experience it in millennium.”) totality for a human being can be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. (Bhagwad Gita- 4.8) The Eternal Journey of Krishna: Revisiting the Past and Exploring... 91 92 Sarita Chanwaria

The divine infant annihilated demons like Putana, Trinavarta, later established Dwarka- a small town in the present Jamnagar Aghasur, Kakasur, Shaktasur and many others relieving people from district in Gujrat located on the bank of river Gomti and the Arabian their cruelties. During exploration of Brij Bhoomi the author was Sea. The distance between Mathura and Dwarka is such that arouses enchanted with forests where Krishna and Balaram with other query why Krishna chose Dwarka as His capital. The legend says cowherd friends played everyday, the houses in Gokul and Vrindavan that Krishna's ancestors belonged to Kusasthali and migrated to the where they stole butter and curds. The sarovars where Krishna Brij Bhoomi. It was Krishna's desire to go back to His ancestral played His divine Flute and spent time with Radha and other gopis. place-so it was a journey in the reverse direction to what His The countless ghats bordering Yamuna each carry a fascinating tale. ancestors had done. Lord Krishna spent 96 years in Dwarka along He lifted the Govardhan Parvat with His tiny finger to crush the ego with His queens Rukmini, Satyabhama and Jambvanti and his sons of Indra. The holy river Yamuna where He battled with the poisonous and grandsons. Dwarka was built by the renowned architect serpent Kaliya and blessed the river with His Lotus Feet. Vishwakarma and was considered as the most beautiful place in the world. Even after much exploration the exact location of Krishna's Generally, the tourists cover the Janmsthan Temple, ISCKON palace is still shrouded in mystery. The Dwarkadheesh Temple is a Temple at Vrindavan and the sacred hill at Govardhan and places like masterpiece of art. The author has described the architect, beauty and Rangji, Banke Bihari and the Govind Dev Temple. But the author the setting of the idols of the temple in such a way that the readers has unveiled and discovered many more places and legends feel as if they are in Dwarka itself. associated with them which include the Krishna-Kund and the Radha kund which enfolds the captivating story of Radha-Krishna creating Amongst the numerous holy places mentioned in the travelogue, sacred kunds; the Brahamand ghat at Mahavan where Yashoda for Kurukshetra is a place known for its historical value even before the the first time saw the entire cosmos in the infant's mouth; the Mor Mahabharat war was fought between the Kauravas and the Pandavas. Kutir in Barsana where Radha leaves Krishna; the Kusum Sarovar A sacred place connected with the compositions of Manusmriti and where Uddhava was given a lesson in true devotion; the Akroor Ghat Rigveda, it has earned fame as Dharmakshetra, a place of righteousness where Krishna and Balrama showed their original forms to a where Lord Krishna preached the Bhagwad Gita and showed His confused Akroor; the fascinating tales of Imli Tala, Kesi Ghat, Cosmic Form to Arjun. Manasi Ganga, Brahma kund and many more. “Karmanye vadhikaraste ma phaleshu kadachana Ma karma phalaheturbhur ma te sanga astvakarmani” There are multiple versions of some stories and legends which are even contradictory. The author has tried to present these versions and (You have a right to perform your duty but you do not have the right leave it to the readers to decide its authenticity. Places like Indra to the fruit of the action. You should not consider yourself the cause Kund, Airavata Kund are mysterious in terms of their exact locations for results of your activities and you should never get attached to and legends and hence their authenticity is under challenge. The inaction.”) author has mentioned the ISCKON and Birla temples of Radha- (Bhagwad Gita- 2.47) Krishna highlighting their maintenance in terms of beauty, Kurukshetra is in the north-eastern part of modern state of Haryana cleanliness and hygiene. At the same time he has expressed his about 160 km. from New Delhi. The actual place where the concern over the untidy and dilapidated condition of the holy places. enlightening discourse of Gita was delivered is Jyotisar, 5 km. from After exploring various places in Brij Bhoomi, the author re-visited Kurukshetra which now has become a famous tourist place. Mysteries Mathura where Krishna killed His maternal uncle Kansa and released about certain places remain unfolded even after much exploration by His parents from the prison cell and relieved the people from his the author. Astipur is one such place which he could not locate during atrocities. He spent His life in Mathura till the age of 28. Sri Krishna his tour. Abundant archaeological material unearthed from The Eternal Journey of Krishna: Revisiting the Past and Exploring... 93 94 Sarita Chanwaria

Kurukshetra and surroundings are displayed in the Krishna Museum This travelogue falls in the category of a travel account of different which include an excellent collection of artefacts like idols, seals, regions within the same country. It is about the great legacy of Indian coins and pottery that dates back to the era of Krishna. The author philosophy and mythology expanding over a period of 125 years- the further proceeds to Somnath, the culminating point of Lord Krishna's life time of the Blue God. This itinerary has a trans-national as well journey located in the state of Gujrat and is famous for the Shiv as trans-cultural value. Its trans-national value can be seen in the fact Temple which is one of the twelve pious Jyotirlingas in India. It is that the Flute Master moved from one place to another crossing the close to the Prabhas area where Lord Krishna spent His last few boundaries of the then existing states- starting from the dusty forests hours on earth before returning to His heavenly abode. His Yadav of Brij Bhoomi (U.P.), proceeding to the coastal area of Dwarka clan also annihilated themselves in a midnight carnage at this very (Gujrat), traverses to Kurukshetra (Haryana) and finally culminating place. Besides many other spots the Sri Prabhas Golok Dham, the in Somnath. Indian culture and mythology becomes a subject of Hiran Kapila Saraswati Triveni Sangam and Sri Krishna Neejdham query for the foreign tourists who are deeply interested in visiting Teerth or the Dehotsarg Teerth, where Lord Krishna shed His mortal and exploring the history of the places and legends described in the body after being struck by Jara's arrow are the most sacred and travelogue. This marks the trans-cultural value of this beautiful work. serene places of this area. The eternal journey of Krishna ends here, but the spiritual urge of His devotees about His life and legends will This is an unusual book in which the writer endeavors to discover Sri never come to an end. Krishna, the real person behind centuries of myths and legends. We read the travelogue not as a story, we do not just watch the incidents Writing a biography of a living person is relatively simple, but to as witness but somehow immerse into it as a participant. Reading the write the story of a character born about 5000 years ago and whose book is a deeply touching experience not felt often. The author appearance and departure on this planet is equally mysterious is a narrates not like a detached, dry intellectual but in the spirit of a real challenge. This book makes us aware of both the popular as well story-teller, deeply in love with the subject and imbued with a spirit as the unknown places and legends of Krishna appreciating the of reverence for the great Character portrayed. We feel twice blessed, glories of a Person whom we have never seen in flesh and blood yet like having taken a holy dip in both the Ganga of Jnana (knowledge) we worship Him as the Supreme Lord. Dev Prasad has made this and the Yamuna of Bhakti (devotion) simultaneously. Here is a travelogue a true trip-companion. He has outlaid the trip plan in 18 chance for the readers to connect to the spiritual roots of their culture days schedule starting from Brij Bhoomi-explaining every possible and probe deeper into them. Centuries have passed, Lord Krishna's conveyance, facilities, providing maps, locations, details of distances, fragrance, philosophy, purity and divinity prevail in our lives pictures, what to see and what to guard against. Along with the tips and guarding and guiding the entire Universe. If you happen to be a part guidance for planning an optimal route, Prasad has also suggested the of this tour or travelogue, you will never be the same. Yes, you are best seasons to visit these holy places so that the tour becomes spiritually transformed ! Come let us revisit the past and explore the pleasant and comfortable. He has also mentioned the important present and take a step ahead to this eternal, enchanting journey. festivals associated with these places. Works Cited The book has much to offer to all type of readers- tourists as well as Bhagwad Gita. Verses. 4.8, 2.47. Gorakhpur: Geetapress,1965. Print. arm-chair tourists. It is a professional tourist guide book. The centres visited are placed in a setting which gives them a tinge of human "Mountain diary of a curious foreigner". Times of India 6 Feb. 2011. Print. emotion; brick and marble speak to the visitors and tell stories. The Prasad, Dev. Krishna. A Journey Through The Lands And Legends Of traveler's journey is presented vividly, we learn about the approach to Krishna. New Delhi: Jaico, 2012. Print. every spot, building, temple, the colour of the idols, their structures and even the material used in them. Journal of Rajasthan Association for Studies in English10: 95-108 (2014) 96 Shalini Misra

military hardware, its towering stock markets, its millionaire entrepreneurs, its growing middle class and its worldwide Travelogue as History : recognition. Balch had travelled the length and breadth of the country to capture the real flavour of India. He met everyone from A Reading of Oliver Balch's India Rising self-made entrepreneurs and mavericks, to rag- pickers and tea wallahs and searched for the people behind this transition. Oliver Shalini Misra Balch's book is a reality-check on the economic, cultural and social changes in India. This is an account of every Indian's hopes, Europe emerged as a centre for manufacturing innovation in the aspirations, disappointments and achievements. He had tried to see nineteenth century; similarly, at the peak of its dividend between India as an Indian, not as a foreigner. In his introduction, Balch says, 1970 and 1990, the United States saw the birth of new technology- “My overarching goal is to gain a flavour of this place, New India, based industries that determined the direction of the global economy through its people, through their hopes and their passions, their over the past few decades. Such an opportunity-to emerge as the new opinions and their perceptions. Given that New India's future will be creative power and a centre for new knowledge and innovation-now written by its youth, it is their voices that I seek out primarily” (7). lies with India. Oliver Balch seems highly fascinated by the transitional India or the Imagining India-Ideas for the New Century by Nandan Nilekani New India where people are creating a new history. They are makers of their own destiny. They do not dwell in the past rather they Oliver Balch is a UK-based freelance writer and journalist, with a fearlessly and gracefully embrace the ever changing scenario and particular interest in issues of sustainable business, international explore new dimensions to define a Brave New India. This is the affairs and social/environmental justice. His work has appeared in a India every Indian dreams of, where an ordinary man is capable of wide range of international publications, including the Guardian, creating an extra ordinary life for himself. Financial Times, Conde Nast Traveller and The Traveller. His first book,Viva South America! was shortlisted as 'Book of the Year' at The main themes reflected in the travelogue are: globalisation, the UK Travel Press Awards.India Rising is his second book. This struggle for identity, social class/caste differences, religious conflicts book is about Oliver's experiences in modern day India. Balch's book between Hindus and Muslims. What emerges is a charismatic is classic travel writing that captures the nuances of a nation, which portrayal of a country at an intersection. India's march into the was once perceived to be a land of saints and snake charmers. Balch twenty-first century is full of crisis, conflicts and uncertainties. But, has visited India on several occasions, the first time as an adventure- it certainly has a big opportunity of becoming a global leader. With hungry school-leaver fifteen years ago. This time, he came with a over half of its billion plus population under the age of twenty-five, wife and two small children. He realised much had changed since he India's destiny will be written by its youth. The need of the hour is to visited India the first time. The country had progressed much. He embrace the CHANGE. Pavan K. Varma also remarks the same in observed a great change in the attitude of Indian people. He found Chankya's New Manifesto to Resolve the Crisis within India: them brimming with confidence and courage to embrace the India, in order to make its real tryst with destiny, transforming India. He observed that they are sharp, experimental must change. We have the potential to be a great and great visionaries. He felt this was the 'New India' which stood power, and must find a way to achieve that goal. (15) high on the global stage. Oliver Balch discovers that the lumbering elephant of Asia- the He had read about the massive transformations of recent years- about world's largest functional democracy, has all the potential to become the country's software explosion, its expanding megalopolises, its a player on the global stage. He observes how Indians are exploring Travelogue as History: A Reading of Oliver Balch's India Rising 97 98 Shalini Misra the opportunities and turning their dreams into reality. As a reflection This is exactly the contrast what we find in Aravind Adiga's The of the progressive India, in the first part of the book, the author White Tiger. When Balram's father was seriously ill, he and his focuses on entrepreneurship and introduces the aspiring and brother Kishan took him to a hospital. There was no doctor in the optimistic entrepreneurs like- Gorur Ramaswamy Iyengar Gopinath hospital to examine the patients. Balram and his brother had to bribe and Dr Devi Shetty. Gopinath is a retired Captain of the Indian Army the ward boy ten rupees just to get the information that the doctor and founder of Air Deccan. In 1962, Gopinath cleared the admission might arrive in the evening. Adiga gives a very realistic pen picture test and joined Sainik School, Bijapur. The Sainik School helped and of the poor facilities in the government hospitals: prepared Gopinath to clear the NDA entrance exams. After 3 years of A couple of Muslim men had spread a newspaper on rigorous training, Gopinath passed out of the NDA. He then went on the ground and were sitting on it. One of them had to graduate from the IMA. After this, he took a commission in the an open wound on his leg. He invited us to sit with Indian Army, earning the rank of Captain. He spent eight years in the him and his friend. Kishan and I lowered Father onto army and fought in the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War. the newspaper sheets. We waited there...The Muslim Upon retirement from the armed forces, he established an men kept adding newspapers to the ground, and the ecologically sustainable sericulture farm. Then, he changed direction line of diseased eyes, raw wounds, and delirious and set up a motorbike dealership, bought a small hotel, and mouths kept growing. (48-49) established a stockbrokerage firm. Again, he took a risk and moved This describes the pathetic condition of the government hospitals in to Bengaluru, purchased a helicopter and started to ferry rich clients India. Discipline and corruption, both come from the top. And here around. In 1997 he co-founded Deccan Aviation, a charter helicopter we find that from a doctor to a ward boy, everyone is corrupt. service. In 2003 Gopinath founded Air Deccan, a low cost airline; Air Deccan merged with Kingfisher Airlines in 2007.T his is how he Balch mentions about some other successful entrepreneurs like emerged as a successful entrepreneur. Balch remarks, Lakshmi Mital, Mukesh Ambani, Anil Ambani, Vijay Malya and Naveen Tewari etc. Naveeen Tewari is the CEO and Founder of And, come the closing chapter, India's aspiring InMobi, which is now the world's second largest ad operator for classes have themselves a modern-day hero: the self- mobile Internet. made man, the archetypal Indian entrepreneur. (13) InMobi is a 'Mobile Advertising marketplace' that gives advertisers a Dr Devi Prasad Shetty is an Indian philanthropist and a cardiac targeted way to reach out to consumers while they surf the web from surgeon who leveraged economies of scale to provide affordable their mobile devices. Balch believes theirs are stories of healthcare. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan, third highest entrepreneurial capitalism which speak volumes of their contribution civilian award in India for his contribution to the field of affordable in the development of India. He comments, “Entrepreneurs are the healthcare. dashing lead characters in the surging New India Story” (35). Narayana Hrudayalaya is no ordinary hospital. A The next chapterBad Status, Actually describes the struggles of pioneer in the Walmart-isation of medical treatment Mohammad 'Babu' Sheikh, a Mumbai driver whose family had – high volumes, low costs, quick turnarounds–its migrated to the millennium city during 1950s' from neighbouring world-class clinicians perform about ten times the Karnataka. The chapter begins with his comment on the Indian number of cardiac surgeries as the average US people: hospital. And they do so at about half the cost. To ensure equitable access, the hospital's administrators Their money is big in America. But in India, people want to get take the fees of the rich to subsidise the operations money. They eat, do shit, and then get up and work again. They don't of the poor. (21) think why. (36) Travelogue as History: A Reading of Oliver Balch's India Rising 99 100 Shalini Misra

The theme this chapter highlights is religious biases in India. Culture rampage by Mumbai's Muslims. Hindu reprisals soon followed. is the essence of any society and religion reflects our culture and Babu was sixteen at that time. For his safety, his mother pulled him tradition. The differences between Hindus and Muslims are quite out of school. There were 'Riots' and 'Bloodshed'. Under such obvious in India. Babu is actually a Muslim by religion. A Muslim circumstances, Babu could not complete his education and became a (his formal name is Mohammed) in a Hindu-dominated city, the driver. Babu works very hard because he wants to see his children gangly driver already senses himself on the defensive. His niece, for become good and honest and intelligent men in future. This is one of example, who keeps the faith and wears a burkha, recently lost her his dreams, his main dream actually. job as a teacher in the slum. Babu remarks very pathetically: The other theme inIndia Rising is globalisation. The book reflects After seven years there, they required her to change the modern world with all the facilities; a world which is technically her religion. She chose to resign instead. (36-37) highly advanced and progressive. Balch remarks: There are other remarks that speak of the ill treatment of other caste Mahindra World City is different from anything I people in Mumbai: saw on those previous trips. The scale of its In Maharashtra, the party says only Marathi people ambition, the breadth of its vision, the size of its should work...Every government office wants to budget – all would have been inconceivable a decade employ their own man... The Mumbai-based party ago. (3) (which enjoys a somewhat turbulent alliance with He further remarks: the nationalist Bhartiya Janta Party) is hell-bent on Asia's elephant is finally awaking. After years in the closing the city's doors to outsiders. (37) economic doldrums, it is slowly but surely making Babu hides his identity as he fears he may lose his job if he reveals good its potential. Yet could so much have changed? the truth because his employer hates Muslims. The differences Changes sufficient to create something as grand, between Hindus and Muslims are reflected in Aravind Adiga's The confident and frankly un-Indian as the World City? White Tiger also. The driver of Mr Ashok is a Muslim but he hides No, that I hadn't expected. Perhaps in a Gulf state or this fact as he fears his employer may throw him out if he discloses Southern California, but India? This was the land of the truth because his employer also hates Muslims. But, the day choked thoroughfares and magnificent old palaces, Balram gets to know this fact, he easily manages to get him out of of bearded sadhus and bedi-smoking beggars, of this job. This shows the bitter hatred for Muslims in our country. rattling trains and clapped-out buses, was it not? (5) Babu doesn't like his job but he can't afford to lose his job. He The rich civilisation of Bangaluru, Mysore and Mumbai, the grand remarks, “Anyway, driver is not a good status job, actually” (70). hotels, big malls, highly reputed business firms and multiplexes-all Babu has many mouths to feed. He has to look after his wife and two reflect India as a technologically advanced country like any other children. He wants to provide them good education but he doesn't advanced country in the world. know where he'll get the money. Balch observes, “Babu works every hour to keep his dependents from starving. Hundreds of millions of Balch mentions that during his journey to an Indian village (by industrious Indians are just the same” (67). helicopter) ,he saw something glinting in the sun below, dozens of silver pools refracting the light. His curiosity piqued, he dropped Babu blames fighting between Hindus and Muslims for depriving down to get a closer look and he couldn't guess what it was. They him of his education. They spoilt his future, he insists. In December were TV-dish antennas, dozens of them. Star TV, Tata Sky, Airtel 1992, the destruction of the Babri mosque in Ayodhya provoked a Digital, Sun Direct, all inextricably built into India's rural landscape. Travelogue as History: A Reading of Oliver Balch's India Rising 101 102 Shalini Misra

When he moves to the city, he mentions about the Business Park, In Mumbai, he meets Nitesh, a branch manager at micro-finance firm Microsoft, Yahoo, and Dell . In Mysore city, he observes a Domino Svasti. Nitesh shows him a power point presentation which reveals a Pizza restaurant, a supermarket called Loyal World, a health centre, particular characteristic of the loan recipients. All of them are women Vodafone and Airtel stores, and an outlet of fashion retailer Indigo with large families. They are 'housewives'. Then, Balch meets Nation, several banks and a one-thousand-four-hundred-seat cinema. Aniket, a junior salesperson who makes Balch familiarise with some Then, Balch visits the Infosys and makes his way to the library first. women. One woman , Laxsmi, runs a 'lady wear' shop. She buys the He finds around sixty thousand books. The magazine rack contains underwear at the wholesale market in Malad and sells it back in the Dataquest, Developer IQ,PC Quest and a host of other technology slum at a small profit. Kanti, another woman, who is a widow, runs a titles. Then he moves to the GEC (Global Education Centre) and small corner store out of her house. Balch's experience with Svasti interacts with some students. When Balch asks them, “What does has inspired him. From Mumbai, Balch heads south. He finds Infosys mean to you?”, they very confidently reply, “A good career slum–based enterprise really impressive as they contribute to in the IT field”, “Excellent training”, “Career growth and women's financial independence and their empowerment. In international exposure.”(34). On being asked, “Why Infosys, not Thiruvananthapuram, Balch meets Sahay, a programme coordinator Whipro , Tata Consultancy Services or another of India's leading IT at the South Indian Federation of Fisherman Societies. Sahay is very companies?, they reply, “It's an honour to be here.” “It has the concerned about his command of English as he wants to move to world's best training”(34). Balch finds them extremely personable, Australia. He oversees a pilot scheme that provides the Federation's brimming with confidence and highly fluent. Balch remarks: members with daily fish prices by mobile phone. In Cholleru, Balch comes across Srilatha, a salesperson, who is busy explaining about India's entrepreneurs have created companies in some home and personal- care her products, clarifying prices and which the brightest crop of young graduates can taking orders .Srilatha and thousands like her are the Avon Ladies of prosper and thrive. (35) rural India. Balch remarks, “Opportunities are emerging. Dreams are This reflects the growth of India and its bright future. Pavan K rising. India is entering an age of Aspiration.” (101). Varma rightly remarks in Chankya's New Manifesto to Resolve the In the next chapter,Actor Prepares , there is special mention of Crisis within India: Mumbai again. India cannot be completed without Bollywood. Balch India made its advent on the global stage as an comments, information technology (IT) power at the turn of the In India, Bollywood is bigger than God. Rich, millennium... Software exports touched $10 billion beautiful and sprinkled in stardust, its modern-day in 2002; between 1999 and 2002 the IT industry heroes are omnipotent and omnipresent. Their grew by more than 50 per cent per year. The global lifestyles feed dreams. Their allegiances win economic recession after 2001 put a brake on elections. And their latest hairstyles shift shampoos. unrealistic expectations, but major IT firms like In short, they are marketing manna, the perfect Infosys still notched up very high growth rates. (41) commodity for aspirational New India.(107) This speaks volumes of the IT growth in India. India is no more a In Bollywood, he meets Naval, a struggling actor. His father wants to land of idle workers and slow thinkers. The wealth of India is its see him in some govt. job, but he wants to become an actor. He sells working people who are willing to work and ready to contribute to his only valuable asset, his HP Compaq labtop. He wants to meet the progress of their country. Salman Khan and join Anupam Kher's academy, on the other hand, In the next chapter,Prahalad's Promise , Balch mentions about his his father thinks that TV serials and films are corrupt. He decides to visit to Mumbai, Thiruvananthapuram and Cholleru, Andhra Pradesh. go back home when he becomes a famous director. His dream is to Travelogue as History: A Reading of Oliver Balch's India Rising 103 104 Shalini Misra open an academy in his village. Balch remarks: Commonwealth Games of 2010 did not showcase Indian cinema offers The Common Man an India's organizational efficiency in staging big opportunity to be transported to another place, a international sporting events but only uncovered the place free of drudgery, a place full of life, love and corruption within the country to the world's gaze. song. (135) (23) This reflects that the present generation doesn't respect the values The next chapter,Chasing Lakshmi, highlights the theme of 'Brain and traditions. They are not bothered about their parents' Drain” and Westernisation. This chapter introduces Rahul, a self expectations from them. They are only interested in what they want trained programmer, who clearly sees his future in US. He does not and they are ready to take any risk in life to pursue their dreams. want to waste his time in Kochi. He speaks in English, never watches Bollywood movies and hates Hindi music. He prefers to eat Chinese The next chapter,Sporting Chance , throws light on the condition of or American food. Most of his friends live abroad and he talks with sports in India. Balch, here, mentions about The Indian Premier them via Skype. He is an Indian but does not want to serve his League and Common Wealth Games. There was IPL tournament in nation. He is obsessed with the western culture. He likes to wear 2008 between Mumbai Indians and Rajasthan Royals. There were western clothes only.He hates Indian mentality. He hates the parents cheerleaders also. Balch comments on it, “Sexing up cricket is what who do not allow their daughters roaming with their boyfriends. the IPL is all about.”(139). Balch observes that cricket is glamorised Balch mentions about the fashion world in Delhi. He mentions a few by the film industry. Shah Rukh Khan never misses an opportunity to names like: Ashdeen, Diva Dhawan, Rhul Khanna, Nida etc. Balch be photographed in the colours of the Kolkata Knight Riders. Shilpa remarks: “Everyone is becoming very Westernised, very Shetty uses her stake in the Rajasthan Royals to keep herself in the cosmopolitan.” (184) limelight. The success of the IPL may be galactic but its appeal is not entirely universal. Balch remarks, “The IPL stands for all that is ill in In the next chapter,Dear Agony Auntiji , Balch shares his experiences India...Life used to be all about 'being'. Now it revolves around about the family court proceedings in India. Balch goes to Kolkata buying.”(145) court to learn about divorce. According to Indian tradition, the sanctity of marriage has to be maintained. No one can even think of Balch mentions that the Commonwealth Games were supposed to be breaking the marriage. But, New India is challenging that. These a wonderful opportunity for India to dazzle the world, but it did not days many maintenance and non-compatibility cases are pending in turn out that way. Balch comments: the family courts. Most hearings end in an adjournment. For the first two days, news-stands still flooded with Occasionally, a case is dismissed. Final judgements are rare. Balch reports of empty stadiums, ticketing problems and comments sarcastically, “India's rising divorce rate is at least keeping condom-blocked toilets in the athletes' village. (150) a small quarter of the legal fraternity busy.” (196) Balch discusses Obviously, this is not a matter to take pride in, but feel ashamed and some cases with the lawyers and comes to know about some embarrassed. This reflects a very dirty picture of India. It speaks of interesting facts. The lawyer tells Balch that in one case, the husband the corrupt officials involved in the organisation of the CWG. Balch tricked his illiterate wife to thumb print her own divorce papers. comments, “India's leaders had led the country down, disgraced them Another man forced his wife into kinky sex against her wishes. She on the world stage.”(159) once represented a man whose wife had eloped with her lover taking all the papers for their house and investments with her. A number of Pavan K Varma also mentions about the corruption in stories are coloured by domestic violence. Wife-beating is not Commonwealth Games in Chankya's New Manifesto to Resolve the uncommon in India. She tells that marriages fall apart for various Crisis within India: reasons. Violent husbands and querulous mother-in laws- are not new Travelogue as History: A Reading of Oliver Balch's India Rising 105 106 Shalini Misra to India. The emergence of professional women leads to inevitable pickles as the school teacher used to steal their lunch money. He had tensions in traditional family roles. There is another reason that seen corruption in schools, hospitals and public offices. During his women have become 'less patient'. journey from an ordinary village teashop waiter to a successful entrepreneur, he becomes increasingly involved with the corrupt Balch moves to Manipur and Mangalore. He meets Sunny, a government. He comments: journalism student whose parents want to marry him off, while he wants to be with the girl of his choice. His father always prevents So we just have to pay off the government, which is him from even speaking to a girl. Sunny becomes desperate and good for us. I'll come with you the first time, but it's begins masturbating. He starts watching blue films. Balch comments a lot of money, and you may have to go a second that he'll always opt for an imported film over local content. He time and third time too. And then there are a couple remarks, “In Indian porn, the woman is not very participative. Just of bureaucrats we have to grease. Get it ? (240) the sex and it's over. That's the difference.” (210) The decision that The tribal areas are completely backward. No government officials Sunny makes indicates the uneasiness and unrest among youth and are appointed to look into the problems these backward people face. their eagerness to embrace the western culture. The parameters are Jeevan comments: changing very fast and people have no time to understand each other. Appointments are made via officials, and officials The generation gap has become wider. want bribes...I've not got enough money to get a job Towards the end Balch mentions how people are trying to make a in government service...Government agents never difference in the Central India infested with Left-wing terrorism. come. As for politicians, they only appear before Balch presents a realistic picture of the rural India. Balch takes us to elections. Nor do official funds arrive as they the home to abused and oppressed Adivasi communities. Balch should.(233) mentions that none of the benefits of economic growth have reached In some areas, there is problem of Naxalites. Guerrilla attacks on the rural villages where Jivan lives. He is a tribal and uneducated. police and army outposts are the Naxal's traditional speciality. In Without the skills and knowledge to compete with the lot of modern 2010, a Naxal battalion killed seventy six members of the Central and educated people, this marginalised group is becoming even more Reserve Police force. The Naxalites employ the tribal people and cut off as India globalises. Balch mentions about the difficulties the they join the Naxalites because at least they get some salary. tribal groups have to face. Jeevan explains about the pathetic condition of a primary school in Chavela: From these tribal areas, Balch moves to a small city, Vijayawada. The teacher is absent...Chavela has no health centre There, he meets Guravaiah, an adivasi. He works as gate keeper. His of it's own, relying instead on a weekly visit by two son-in-law works as a servant in a low grade hotel. The younger two nurses from Marda...They help with coughs, women-the gatekeeper's wife Jamalamma and twenty-year-old colds...typhoid, malaria...Malnutrition is daughter-go out to earn. Balch remarks very pathetically: commonplace too...No one in Chavela has motorised During the day, they work as rag-pickers, sifting transport. People rely on bullock carts and bicycles. through the city's garbage bins. At night, they (231) prostitute themselves...The sex trade is one of the few boom industries in this city of transients. Rates InThe White Tiger also we find the similar instance. Since his of HIV/AIDS also run frighteningly high. (259) childhood, Balram was exposed to the corrupt practices in the government schools and hospitals. There was supposed to be free Jayaraja, who also belongs to the tribal community, tells Balch the food in his school but the children never saw rotis, or yellow daal or family's back story. He reveals a very startling fact : Travelogue as History: A Reading of Oliver Balch's India Rising 107 108 Shalini Misra

Many Dommara women work in the sex trade. For meets in India. Balch strongly feels that India has all the potential to them, as for a handful of other tribal communities, reach the pinnacle of success as India is a country with the largest prostitution has become a 'traditional occupation'. percentage of youth. APJ Abdul Kalam and A Shivathanu Pillai also Like carpentry or shoe-mending or rag-picking even. believe in the potential of India. They aptly remark in Thoughts for (259-260) Change-We Can do it : Such people are the worst sufferers. What could be more disgusting India is blessed with the largest youth power in the and disgraceful than 'Sex-Trade' in India. These are the people who world. Skill and value system will make India a even don't know about their country, they don't know who is running globally demanded human resource. Ignited mind of the country. They are illiterate, ignorant and the worst victims. the youth is the most powerful resource on the earth, above the earth and under the earth. Their Balch, then, moves to Pune where he finds a ray of hope. There he knowledge, courage and devotion will certainly meets Ashish, a highly talented computer programmer who prefers to make India a great nation, once again! (276-277) teach children who come from poor background. Ashish is one of a hundred or so Teach for India fellows. Teach for India encourages Balch observes that India is developing very fast and the day is not young professionals to take out time of their careers to try their far when India will be a model of excellence for the rest of the world. hands in the classroom. Balch remarks, “Teach for India's purpose is No doubt, there are still greater challenges ahead but there is 'HOPE' to breathe some new life and fresh thinking into the country's and 'DETERMINATION' also. And, with little more efforts, Indians education system.” (273) This is a revolutionary step in the field of can overcome any obstacle. education. Ashish has set up a series of training workshops in Works Cited curriculum development by applying his project-planning skills learned at Infosys. Balch meets two other volunteers on the Teach for Adiga, Aravind.The White Tiger. Harper Collins Publishers, India. 2008. India programme. They are Daniel and Ritesh, who have realised (all the references in the text are from this edition.) print their responsibilities to the society and are willing to work for it. Balch, Oliver.India Rising: Tales from a Changing Nation , Faber and Faber Ltd, UK. 2013. print The concluding chapterGandhi's Talisman presents a fair picture of Kalam, A P J and Pillai, A Sivathanu.Thoughts for Change- We Can do it . India where self-sufficient and self-reliant people are contributing to Pentagon Press, New Delhi. 2013. print the progress of their brothers and sisters who require their support Nilekani, Nandan.Imagining India-Ideas for the New Century . Penguin and guidance. There is one, Indrani Medhi, who works with Books India Pvt. Ltd, New Delhi. 2008. print microsoft to tweak new technologies for the needs of illiterate Varma, Pavan K. Chanakya's New Manifesto to Resolve the Crises Within communities. Another, Rikin Gandhi, is a US–born aerospace India. Aleph Book Company, New Delhi. 2013. print engineer using basic video cameras to help farmers voice their problems and share their success stories. Vivek runs his website and Websites MumbaiVotes.com is his creation. His purpose is to produce an annual' report card 'for all elected officials. Balch book's is a unique blend of reportage and travel writing. The book is written in a very simple language. This is not only entertaining but informative also. He has presented a highly personalised account of the people and their experiences whom he Journal of Rajasthan Association for Studies in English10: 109-117 (2014) 110 Shruti Jain

[…] “interest” … it not only creates but also maintains; it is, rather than express, a certainwill or intention to understand, in some cases to control, manipulate, even to incorporate, what is a manifestly different world; it is, above all a discourse this is Travelogue: A Mirror to An Underlying Journey by all means in direct, corresponding relationship with political power in the raw, but rather is produced and exists in an uneven Shruti Jain exchange with various kinds of power, shaped to a degree by the exchange with power political (as with a colonial or What are the ceremonies for such departures- departures that imperial establishment) […]. (12) are neither entirely chosen nor entirely forced, and that are All the 'will to knowledge' is bound up with the will to power. The chosen and forced at the same time? knowledge about the Orient was not disinterested or knowledge for Eva Hoffman, “Paradise” the sake of wisdom, but a necessary constituent for colonial practices. Travel is departure from one place to another, going from place to place. It is a movement from one geographical area to a new one and Yes then the travel writing along these lines was an important exposition of such journey, charting the difference, distance, features component in the building up of European exploration, commercial penetration, imperial expansion and colonisation, drawing the of that other territory is a travelogue. On the other hand, a literary support from the words of Daniel Defert that it is the travel literature travelogue or travelogue as a literature genre is a form which where “Europe took consciousness of itself, wrote about itself and measures distances and differences not in kilometres and geography read about itself more and more as the basis of a planetary process but in terms of ideological spatial discourse. It is a metaphorical and not as a region of the world”. Travelogues played an important journey with a symbolic significance which defines the writer's view role in producing the 'Other' in respect to the normative European and relationship to his own and the new geographical area in relation Self. The 'Other', the 'Orient' who is though exotic yet is a negative- to their society and culture. Thus, Padmini Mongia is right in writing other. It exists only in relation to the 'Self' and therefore has to be that travel is not just “[…] about the physical movement and the ruled. This process of European colonisation has been observed in journey from here to there […]” but “[…] a figure for different innumerable travel books and Daniel Defoe'sRobinson Crusoe is the modes of stasis, movement, and knowledge”. Conversely, the irony most prominent symbol of it. Yet Gills Deleuze and Felix Guattari is that this desire for 'knowledge' of 'The Royal Society of London provide relief from the apparent 'Self' and 'Other' as bounded entities for Improving Natural Knowledge' encouraged travellers to make as they see boundaries as continuously changing arrangement of a records of information of exotic sights and experiences in foreign range of interrelated 'assemblages'. The movement through lands. In fact, the interest of the society at that time in the travel territorialized spaces, or the 'lines of flight' as Deleuzu calls writings was to such a great extent that travel writers were movement, can lead to 'deterritorialization', dismantling of power characterized into different categories: editors, pilgrims, knights, structures as deconstruction helps us to look at power structures as missionaries, diplomats, merchants, explorers, scientists it was a mere constructs, making them loose their meaning. This process can whole range of typology of travel writers. Besides the reporting of in turn head 'reterritorialization', subversion or a new power the travellers was authenticated both by the amalgamation of travel equation. So, travelling not only establishes authority of one over and its record in writing, which firmly legitimized journeying and its another but can also destabilize already established one. tropes in the mind of every European. However, Edward Said in I propose to project that Gulliver's 'travel' in Jonathan Swift's Orientalism aptly elaborates this 'interest': Gulliver's Travels uses the devices of a travelogue to shift and Travelogue: A Mirror to An Underlying Journey 111 112 Shruti Jain reverse the commonly known European colonial discourse which first rebukes the colonised for being indifferent in recording their denies human agency to the colonized as it critiques colonialism. history and then in the second, ironically questions and reprimand the coloniser for taking advantage of this 'unconscious' state of the The first significant device that helps to unravel this underlying former. The explorer in the attire of travelling went to the unknown voyage is the travelogue convention of using first person narrative. beautiful foreign lands and robs them in their unaware, unconscious This device does not merely establish a sense of identification with state. Gulliver as contemporary as well as modern and post modern readers but also helps to undergo the pain and misery of a colonised as However, once Gulliver is 'transported' to the metropolis in order to Gulliver; the English narrator has to bear the inhuman atrocities of be presented to the king, the colonisation begins in its most obvious the dominant master. Lemuel Gulliver, a European surgeon is sense: the master ordering, exploiting, and assaulting the enslaved captivated by six inches high Lilliputians. The amusing manner in servant. Irrespective of the services offered by Gulliver to the which Swift illustrates Lilliputians captivating the 'unconscious' Lilliputians, the latter sentenced him to death on the charges of body of Lemuel Gulliver transforms his body and gives a sight of treason. One day, a lord from the imperial court called on Gulliver in that colonised land whose every inch of deeply rooted traditions, strict secrecy and informed him that the state has prepared an article conventions, rituals, thoughts, feelings and understanding is chained of impeachment against him because he had urinated within the by the 'burden' of raising its 'consciousness' to the realization of his boundaries of the royal palace and he is being doubted on his loyalty 'savagery' and in turn 'civilizing' it: to Lilliput against Blefuscu. Gulliver urinated to extinguish fire and I lay down on the grass, which was very short and soft, where I save the empress as sufficient water was not available, and as far as slept sounder than ever I remember to have done in my life, and loyalty is concerned, he had not only alone crippled the fleet of as I reckoned, above nine hours; for when I awaked, it was just Blefuscu in the war against Lilliput, rather he wanted to insure peace daylight. I attempted to rise, but was not able to stir: for as I between the two nations but vowing always to support Lilliput in the happened to lie on my back, I found my arms and legs were time of need. Ancient travel literature is replete with animal and strongly fastened on each side to ground, and my hair, which monstrous 'Others' but the projection of merciless distrust and was long and thick, tied down in the same manner. I likewise violence towards the 'Other' by Lilliput has subverted the colonial felt several slender ligatures across my body, from my armpits convention. to my thighs. I could only look upwards, the sun began to grow Gulliver's next Travel brings him to the markets, exhibitions and fairs hot, and the light offended my eyes. I heard a confused noise of Brobdingnag. Markets, Exhibitions and fairs are the essence of about me, but in the posture I lay, could see nothing except the travelogues as they are the source to know the traditional as well as sky. In a little time I felt something alive moving on my left leg, the popular culture of a place. Hence, for the native readers they which advancing gently forward over my breast, came almost become assembly point of the reflection of their existing wants and up to my chin; when bending my eyes downwards as much as I desires, and for the foreign reader, the unfulfilled wants and desires could, I perceived it to be a human creature not six inches high, which can be questioned by the reader, on being the podium. with a bow and arrow in his hands, and a quiver at his back. In the mean time, I felt at least forty more of the same kind In contrast to the Lilluptians, the huge men of Brobdingnag made following the first. (21) Gulliver himself feel like a Lilliputian. Yet, Gulliver soon finds a protector, though the safe existence does not last long. The farmer The explorer, Christopher Columbus came, and followed him the who had found Gulliver when the latter's curiosity made him venture Spanish Colonisation. The above lines, also summons Derek into the interior of the island where his fellow sailors had stopped to Walcott's “Names” and “The Sea is a History”. In the first poem he Travelogue: A Mirror to An Underlying Journey 113 114 Shruti Jain look for some fresh water, gave him to his nine years daughter who as one the stark proof that European travellers travelled in the hope was about forty feet high. The young girl looks after him and his to be 'received' by the people who were 'conceived' savages. needs in every possible way. But one day, the farmer in accordance Moreover Swift uses the genre to show that the 'Self' and the 'Other' to the suggestion given by his friend decides to 'display' Gulliver in are not fixed and stable identities. He like Mandeville or any other the markets of Brobdingnag as an object of curiosity to make money. travel write of his time though used 'ugly monsters' to describe the This episode ensures colonial slavery by highlighting the concept of curious and the loathsome beast he encountered in the foreign land the construction of the colonial 'Other' which seems to result from but the term is for the Yahoos who are humans in contrast to the the mixed urge of exploring and exploiting the exotic. Peter perfect horses Houyhnhnms. The 'Self' and the 'Other' are thus Stallybrass and Allon White in The Politics and Poetics of interchangeable, in reality they exist because of each other is made Transgression state that a West Indian midget was displayed at Leeds bare nowhere in the manner it is witnessed when Gulliver is and in Lincoln's Inn Field during 1704 and 1709 (40) and the same completely mystified by the wonders of Houyhnhnms. Awestruck, he widget with his pregnant wife is reported to be displayed under the not only imitates them but also expresses self-hatred. Initially, he tag of 'Little Family' by a person who proposed the prospects of avoid speaking of Yahoos as Europeans but gradually falls into the breeding the specie at Charing Cross by Aline Mackenzie Taylor in habit of referring to Europeans as Yahoos because the perfection of “Sights and Monsters and Gulliver'sVoyage to Brobdingnag ”(65-66). the Houyhnhnms contrasts with the actions and thoughts of his John Mandeville was an explorer who contributed to the countryman: development of the myths of the monsters living outside Europe. In I told him, we fed on a thousand things which operated contrary hisTravels speaking of the inhabitants of the Isle of Natumeran he to each other; that we ate when we were not hungry, and drank writes: “Men and women of that isle have heads like hounds; and without the provocation of thirst […] which disposed us to they are called Cynocephales, This folk, thereof all they be of such sloth, inflamed our bodies, and precipitated or prevented digestion. That prostitute female Yahoos acquired a certain shape yet they are full reasonable […] They are large of stature and malady, which bred rottenness in the bones of those who fell good warriors, and they bear a great target, with which they cover all into their embraces; that this and many other diseases were their body, and a long spear in their hand” (138). propagated from father to son […]. (212) Thus, we can say that in Swift's time and before it was regular thing At the same time, this derogatory description of his countrymen by to present the 'Other' in an unusual different manner for and by a Gulliver to Houyhnhnms is different from the conventional European eye. However, in the next section we will see Swift using informational mode of travelogues as can even be compared with his travelogue and this technique to produce not the idea but itself Mandeville's above account. The traveller is not observing or writing Europe for European mind. the 'information' or 'account' of the country he is visiting. As discussed in the beginning, it still remains a fact that 'knowledge is The last voyage takes us into the land of Houyhnhnms and Yahoos power' but this account of Europe via a European gaze will not make Gulliver was left dumbstruck when he realized that Houyhnhnms, Europe a mercantile enterprise rather will open up the route to think the horses were the boss of Yahoos and was ashamed of the fact that if Yahoos are the symbol of hopeless, irrational, depraved, decadent, he had bought some toys for the latter “[…] which travellers usually inhuman man or Gulliver surviving among Yahoos, a reminder as carry for presents to the savage Indians of America and other parts, John F. Ross says in “The Final Comedy of Lemuel Gulliver” that “a in hopes the people of the house would be thereby encouraged to human is not a Yahoo”(74), may be implying that human being is in receive me kindly” (192). Coming from a European writer, it serves the process of becoming one but still has the scope to save the 'Self' from finally being a Yahoo. Travelogue: A Mirror to An Underlying Journey 115 116 Shruti Jain

This in line reveals that 'I' of travelogues are/ become not always the Notes base of authorities trying to make informational orders seem natural 1. Bartkowski, Frances. “Travel As/Is”. Travellers, Immigrants, Inmates: by staring from the periphery which gives them license to form the Essays in Estrangement. Minnesota Archive Edition, 1995. Page judgement because of the benefit of someone who has witnessed and XXIII conceived the situation or place as a whole but at times are/desiring 2. 'distances not in kilometers' : these words are indebted to Tabish Khair. to be recognised as voices yearning to be either changed or to be Khair, Tabish. “Introduction”. Other Routes: 1500 Years of African appreciated. In this manner Tabish Khair is not wrong in and Asian Travel Writing. Ed. Tabish Khair, Martin Leer, Justin D. pronouncing that: “Travel, then, is not just a matter of going away. It Edwards, and Hanna Ziadeh. Oxford: Indiana University Press, 2005. is also a matter of coming back […]”. (2) Page 4 So we can say that Swift has used the genre of travelogue not only to 3. Khair, Tabish, Martin Leer, Justin D. Edwards, and Hanna Ziadeh, eds. Other Routes: 1500 Years of African and Asian Travel Writing. dismantle certain fixed theories of colonial discourse but also to Oxford: Indiana University Press, 2005. show that travelogue serve to give an outlet to repressed emotions, 4. Defert, Daniel. “La Collecte du Monde: Pour Une Des Recits De aspirations and cravings which confers new dimensions to life. Voyages Du Seizieme Au Dix- Huitieme Siecle”. Collections Passions. Nevertheless,Gulliver's Travels in the form of imaginary travelling Ed. Jacques Hainard, and Roland Kaeht. Neuchatel, 1982. Page 26. of the world of fairytales promises wonders even to children. Translation of the words by Mary Louise Pratt. Bruno Bettelheim, in understanding the import and significance of 5. Assemblages are composed of heterogeneous elements or objects that fairy tales puts down: enter into relations with one another. These objects are not all of the same type. Thus you have physical objects, happenings, events, and so When all the child's wishful thinking gets embodied in a good on, but you also have signs, utterances, and so on. While there are fairy, all his destructive wishes in an evil witch; all his fears in a assemblages that are composed entirely of bodies, there are no veracious wolf; all the demands of his conscience in a wise man assemblages composed entirely of signs and utterances. encountered on an adventure; all his jealous anger in some http://larvalsubjects.wordpress.com/2009/10/08/deleuze-on- animal that picks out the eye of his archrivals-then the child can assemblages/ finally begin to sort out his contradictory tendencies. Once this 6. It is an indication to the 'White Man's Burden' Rudyard Kipling refers. starts, the child will be less and less engulfed by unmanageable 7. Gulliver was chained on the wheeled carriage to be taken to the chaos. (66) metropolis. Swift takes a child to lands located in different time and space. It's a 8. Ross, John F. “The Final Comedy of Lemuel Gulliver”. Swift: A voyage inside his mind, and the Gulliver's encounters that he reads or Collection of Critical Essays. Ed. Ernest Tuveson. Englewood Cliffs, listens becomes his own. He comprehends Gulliver's hardships and N.J: Prentice Hall, 1964. 9. This concept can be said to become prominent with the figure of the difficulties in making choices at Lilluput as problems he will have to th th face in his own life. Just as Gulliver learn to combat the difficulty of rover or the dandy in 17 to 19 century. living among huge giants in the land of Brobdingnag, the child will 10. Tabish Khair. Khair, Tabish. “Introduction”. Other Routes: 1500 Years also have to show wit and courage to face the austerities in his life. of African and Asian Travel Writing. Ed. Tabish Khair, Martin Leer, This fairytale travelogue helps the child to learn to acknowledge the Justin D. Edwards, and Hanna Ziadeh. Oxford: Indiana University Press, 2005. various aspects of his individuality, gain knowledge for himself enabling him to mature. Thus, Eva Hoffman is true in above quote Works Cited that these travelogues are journeys having different reasons, many Bartkowski, Frances. Travellers, Immigrants, Inmates: Essays in ideologies, and various desires underlying them, some well planned Estrangement. Minnesota Archive Edition. New Delhi: Rupa, 1995. and some fated. Print. Travelogue: A Mirror to An Underlying Journey 117 Journal of Rajasthan Association for Studies in English10: 118-124 (2014)

Bettelheim, Bruno. The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1976. Print. Defert, Daniel. “La Collecte du Monde: Pour Une Des Recits De Voyages Du Seizieme Au Dix-Huitieme Siecle”. Collections Passions. Ed. Swami Vivekananda's Travel to America: A Saga Jacques, Hainard, and Roland Kaeht. Neuchatel, 1982. Print. of Resistance, Representation and Reformation “Deterritorialization, Reterritorialization, and Lines of Flight”. Antke Engel (Institute for Queer Theory, Berlin) Work Group 1: Borders Nocosia Subhashis Banerjee (Cyprus) 14-15 April, 2009. Print. Taw Azu Dutt, Ajanta, Ed.Neruda, Walcott and Atwood: Poets of the Americas . Delhi: Worldview, 2002. Print. “A striking figure, clad in yellow and orange, shining like the sun of Khair, Tabish, Martin Leer, Justin D. Edwards, and Hanna Ziadeh, Eds. India in the midst of the heavy atmosphere of Chicago”- Annie Other Routes: 1500 Years of African and Asian Travel Writing. Besant (Great Thinkers on Swami Vivekananda, 69). Oxford: Indiana UP, 2005. Print. Travel writing has emerged in recent years as a focus for study and Mandeville, John.The Book of John Mandeville . Hakluyt Society Series 2, research across a whole range of discipline. What was once vol. 101. London: Oxford UP, 1953. Print. th dismissed as a 'sub-literary' genre or at best a historical archive of MLA Handbook for Writers of research Papers. 7 ed. New Delhi: East- unsystematic travel impressions is now being studied in terms of its West Press Private Limited, 2009. Print history, formal characteristics, and problems of representation, and Nayar, Pramod K.Literary Theory Today. New Delhi: Prestige, 2006. Print for what it can be made to say about a whole range of themes. Travel Said, Edward.Orientalism . London: Penguin, 1977. Print writing, as centrally concerned with the structured representation of Stallybrass, Peter, and Allon White. The Politics and Poetics of identity and difference, has had a powerful influence on Western Transgression. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1986. Print understandings of and interactions with the rest of the world and Swift, Jonathan.Gulliver's Travels . Ed. Louis A. Landa. Delhi: Book Land, much recent analysis has focused on issues such as individual 2002. Print subjectivity; national and other identities; representations, knowledge Taylor, Aline Mackenzie. “Sights and Monsters and Gulliver's Voyage to and power; genre and authority; imaginative geographies. Travel and Brobdingnag”. Tulane Studies in English VII (1957) travel writing in an age in which identities cut across traditional Tuveson, Ernest, ed.Swift: A Collection of Critical Essays . Englewood conceptual categories, everything seems connected and places have Cliffs, N.J: Prentice Hall, 1964. Print been over-represented to the point of cliché have also made travel writing a useful source for the study of diasporic communities, globalization and post modernity. This humble study sought to examine the figure of Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902), a sanyasi who travelled to America, as one of the first Hindus to articulate his religion in the West. During his extensive travels in India Swami Vivekananda had acquired an intimate knowledge not only of the socioeconomic conditions of his countrymen but the spiritual and cultural values they had cherished for thousands of years. Likewise, during his stay and tour in the United States of America and his sojourn in the United Kingdom for over four years, the celebrity monk assiduously studied the spiritual Swami Vivekananda's Travel to America: A Saga of Resistance... 119 120 Subhashis Banerjee and Taw Azu and cultural values that guided the lives of the people of those Even his second visit was undertaken, not so much with this countries. consciousness of a mission, but with the same frank and avowed The paper is an attempt to argue that Vivekananda's spiritual mission purpose of raising funds for the Mission's service work, this time can be seen as a critical engagement with the orientalist education. Swamiji wrote in a letter to India: “Nowhere have I heard essentialisations of his day in an effort to change the subordinate role so much talk about freedom-'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness' of India in relation to the West. It makes an outline of the discursive - and nowhere is it less understood” (C.W VI, 276 ). challenges which Vivekananda and his contemporaries faced through He left India from the port at Bombay without any credentials. His a Saidian examination of Orientalism in India. Further the paper 'Madras Boys' even had neglected the protocol of registering his explains how, in his presentation of India and Hinduism, name at the Parliament of Religions, which caused an inconvenience, Vivekananda used his rhetorical ingenuity and his physical figure as when he arrived in America. On May 31 he boarded S.S. Peninsular a way to refute the Orientalist theses of India's degeneracy and with a first class ticket, a silk robe and a handsome purse and headed effeminacy, and offered a formulation of the Vedanta tradition with for the New World. Almost two months later, on 25th of July, he which he hoped to earn for India the status of respected spiritual reached Vancouver on the west coast of Canada. From there he teacher. Thus, this paper draws on the work of Ashis Nandy and travelled by train to Winnipeg, and then to St. Paul, Minnesota. A Homi Bhabha to argue that Vivekananda was neither an innocent third train then would take him to Chicago, reaching there on 30th of victim nor a polemical manipulator of his circumstances, but by July. Soon Vivekananda found himself running short of money. He virtue of his luminal status between cultures, ultimately sought to could not attend the meeting without credentials (from the religious transcend the discursive dichotomies in which he was often mired. authorities of Hinduism, the religion he was to represent), and it was The main focus of the discussion is the binary oppositions in the too late to do so. He also found living in Chicago was too expensive, character of an oriental-Indian monk which has penetrated into the with the limited resources he had with him. He had come to America reasons behind this man's self-commodification and relation with the with about 185 British Pounds given to him by Alasinga Perumal and American women. an unknown amount in the purse given by the Raja of Khetri. But it was his charismatic personality, and a series of coincidences in the What motivated Swami Vivekananda to come to America? It is next few weeks that enabled him to be recognized by even strangers, usually thought that he had a command from his Master, Sri as one of the most intellectual minds they had ever met. Prof John Ramakrishna, to do so, or that he came to “bring the message of Henry Wright of Harvard University wrote to the chairman of the Vedanta to the Western world.” But that was not his view of it at the Parliament of Religions, “He is more learned than all our learned time. Rather, it is our reading, our understanding as we look back professors put together. Asking such a man to produce credentials is through history. “I did not go to America for the Parliament of like asking the sun for the light with which it shines…” Religions,” he wrote; “I wanted to get experience and mix” (C.W V, (Mumukshananda1999, 12). 270). Swami Vivekananda spent his best energies in this country. During his first twenty-nine years in India he was gathering the Though many times Vivekananda proved himself as an unguarded experience and the resources for his mission; and the last two years, traveler to the west, his actions were not motiveless. He himself once also over there, he was polishing the Indian work and retiring from uttered, “I came here to seek aid for my impoverished people, and I it. The whole middle period, his best seven years, he gave to the fully realized how difficult it was to get help for the heathen from West. “I had to work,” he wrote to Mary Hale, the one he regarded as Christians in a Christian land” (C.W I, 20). And it was for this reason a sister, “till I am at death's door and had to spend nearly the whole only that he had left no stone unturned to represent himself and his of that energy in America, so that the Americans may learn to be country no less than the White Christians. Many have commented on broader and more spiritual”(C.W V, 170). Vivekananda's savvy representation of himself. There is much Swami Vivekananda's Travel to America: A Saga of Resistance... 121 122 Subhashis Banerjee and Taw Azu evidence that his very appearance was a well crafted spectacle: he He wrote numerous letters to many of his friends in India describing carefully selected his signature outfit of a silk dress and a turban, their virtues and showed great admiration. In a letter written to the which made him appear “more a prince than a sadhu” (Sen, 30). His Maharaja of Khetri of Rajasthan in 1894, Swami Vivekananda's striking presence was noted by many observers, and scholars have admiration for American women was superb and splendid: suggested that his popularity, especially amongst women, was due “American women! A hundred lives would not be sufficient to pay more to his appearance and oratorical skills than his message (Sil my deep debt of gratitude to you! Last year I came to this country in 1997, 91-102; Sen, 32-33).Vivekananda seems to have felt a need to summer, a wandering preacher of a far distant country, without name, play a certain role to gain sympathy. Swamiji acknowledged that he fame, wealth, or learning to recommend me - friendless, helpless, was able to delight his female hosts by playing the “curio from almost in a state of destitution; and American women befriended me, India” (Letters, 39). gave me shelter and food, took me to their homes, and treated me as Vivekananda clearly benefited from the marketability of his message, their own son, their own brother” (C.W VI, 269). declaring with characteristic frankness,” I give them spirituality, and Prof. Narasingha Sil in his very recent critical work 'Swami they give me money” (Nikhilananda, 82). He quickly became a Vivekananda: A reassessment' mentioned his view on Swamiji's commodity in America, his face even started appearing on packages relation with the American women: of Ceylon tea, although it is unclear whether he received any money from his endorsement (Sen 2000,33). It seems that Vivekananda at “A total stranger to the world of extrovertly educated, and affluent times was preoccupied with the construction of his own international women, he was charmed by their generosity, kindness, and frankly celebrity (Sil 1997-91-102). At his most reflective, he realized the unqualified admiration for and obsession with a handsome, young, artificiality of his image, but acknowledged the necessity of playing witty, and somewhat enchantingly naïve virgin male from a distant by the rules of the Orientalist discourse in order to further his cause. land” (Sil, 1997). He was well aware of the humility and irony of his endeavor In spite of his all praise for their hospitality, caring and purity of quipping that “I am not teaching religion. I am selling my brain for heart, he was also critical of American women and their obsession money to help my people” (Sil 1997, 169). with their physique, beauty and efforts to look young. Although they were intelligent, they were not serious, steady and sincere. Boston There was a mutual respect, attraction, charm and fascination ladies received the harshest criticism: between Swami Vivekananda and the American women. It was a strange, inexplicable and subconscious telepathy between them. He “Of all, Boston is the worst. There the women are all faddists, fickle, mystified the women of America and England with his appearance, merely bent on following something new and strange by squeezing demeanor, innocence, voice, colorful silk robe, turban and chanting their waist, making their spine crooked, and thus displacing their of Sanskrit slokas. In one of his letters written from Chicago where liver and spleen and disfiguring their form. They suffer the torment he participated in the Parliament of World Religions, he mentioned: of death to look shapely in appearance, and added to that is the burden of dress, over which they have to show their features to the “Nowhere in the world are women like those of this country. How best of their advantage. Their Western dress is, however, more suited pure, independent, self-relying and kind hearted! It is the women for work. With the exception of the dress worn in society by the who are the life and soul of the country. All learning and culture ladies of the wealthy classes, the dress of the women in general is centered in this country… There are thousands of women here whose ugly. The Sari of Indian women, and the Choga-Chapkan (a kind of minds are as pure and as white as snow of this country” (C.W VI, Indian dress) and turban of our men defy comparison as regards 268) beauty in dress” (C.W V, 445). Swami Vivekananda's Travel to America: A Saga of Resistance... 123 124 Subhashis Banerjee and Taw Azu

Throughout his travel to America Swami Vivekananda revealed the materialism for the new generation. There was no discordant human qualities in him which more interestingly, unveiled his violence in the hybrid character of Swami Vivekananda; rather he Character as a curious traveler from a distant land and certainly a attempted to assimilate both the cultures. social critic. His open heartedness, the qualities to mix up with the Works Cited people helped him to establish his point in the West. The establishment of the Vedanta Society and the centres of Ramakrishna Bhabha, Homi. K.The Location of Culture . London: Routledge, 1994. Print. Mission are the fruits of his endeavor. It was quiet surprising to see Mumukshananda, Swami. Ed.His Call to the Nation Calcutta: Advaita that an Indian Monk dressed in princely attire moving around the Ashram, 1999. Print. streets with young beautiful girls of America. Many critics have spilt Nikhilanad. Ed.Vivekananda: The Yogas and other Works. New York: much ink on his face to prove that Swami Vivekananda is a blot for Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Centre . 1953. Print. India's pure character. But he refuted the arguments by his work. He Raychaudhuri, Tapan. Europe Reconsidered: Perceptions of the West in did not take a single step there without any motive. He knew well the nineteenth century Bengal. New Delhi: Oxford UP, 1988. Print. power of the western women and had utilized his connection well. It Sen, Amiya.Swami Vivekananda . New Delhi: Oxford UP, 2000. Print. might be true that at the very first the elite ladies of America were Ibid, 30. Print. very much moved and charmed by the manly appearance of the Sil, Narasingha,Swami Vivekananda: A reassessment , Susquehanna Indian native monk, but, later they all became his disciple-sisters University Press, Selinsgrove: Susquehanna University Press, 1997. after knowing Swamiji's noble purpose of visit. Even some of them Print. (e.g. sister Nivedita) came over to India with him with the motive to Vivekananda, Swami.The Complete Works , Vol. V, Calcutta: Advaita emancipate the Indian women in particular through proper education. Ashram, 1964. Print. After the much awaited speech in the parliament of Religions in Chicago, Vivekananda devoted himself for the cause of his people. Bhabha's theory allows for a reassessment of Vivekananda not as an Orientalist puppet, or as a relic from India's past, but as a complex, creative and authentic agent. Thus, although Vivekananda displays the characteristic “un-homely condition of the modern world” (Bhabha, 11), it is clear that his liminal position between the culture of India and America was incredibly productive. This productivity is evident both in his material accomplishments, and his success in challenging the discursive dichotomies of his time through his embodied hybridity. Furthermore, Vivekananda's travels in India and in the West gave him the perspective to develop an awareness of the superficiality of the essentialisations that both cultures posit. Having been forced to play each role, he realized that the stereotypes of the Western 'mlechha' and the “slave –like dark –skinned native… were fake because they were superficial” (Raychaudhuri 1988, 268). His very life can be seen as the attempt to harmonize the dichotomies between East and West. The Parliament gave him a good platform. His intention was to make a blend of Indian Spirituality and Western Journal of Rajasthan Association for Studies in English10: 125-130 (2014) 126 Mukta Sharma

poetic (and vaguely orientalist) manner, at the same time as investing it with the authority of Coleridge's canonical status. Balanced by the subtitle,A Quest;, which suggests more concrete, practical elements, William Dalrymple's In Xanadu: A Quest: In Xanadu, harnesses the association with the poem's mythical A Post Colonial Perspective qualities in order to affect a sense of the exotic. This association Is strengthened, and overlaid with a lacquer of Romantic values of the Mukta Sharma importance of poetry, when William and Louisa solemnly recite the poem in unison upon reaching their destination (300). The text's title William Dalrymple's writings operate in relation to Imperialism and immediately alters the object of the travelers: instead of travelling to its legacies. First published in 1990In Xanadu: A Quest, provides a (Chinese) Shangtu-a name mentioned only once throughout the text chronicle of Dalrymple's journey through the Middle East and in (285) they seek the (British) literary destination named by Coleridge. China following in the footsteps of Marco Polo. It is William's, The backbone ofIn Xanadu is the narration of the daily trials of observations on the countries and people encountered, and the William and his companions. William is presented as an indolent discomforts and hardships faced by him and his companions (Laura gentleman, as someone unafraid to send himself up or to reveal his and Louisa) in the act of travel. The juxtaposition that In Xanadu weaknesses in terms of physical state or stamina. His intellectual makes between Britain and the East, and between William, Laura and powers are never brought into question. He is resented as a modern Louisa and the locals with whom they interact, advances a sense of embodiment of the enthusiastic amateur gentleman traveller, harking nostalgic lmperia [lism, and of the racial and class superiority. back nostalgically to a particular incarnation of British Imperialism. In Xanadu is an expression of dynamics of power, knowledge and Such a representational choice necessarily implies an acceptance of identity. Dalrymple represents himself throughout this book as a British superiority. Inevitably, the aspects of Imperialism recalled in young, highly educated, upper-class, British protagonist, this belated nostalgic fashion are those that are daring, heroic and nostalgically referring back to the previous generations of British masculine. This image remains despite William's distinctly un- travellers and Empire. This work is concerned with the strategic athletic characterization. The confusion of William's, Laura's and construction and maintenance of this central character. Louisa's attributes reinforces the image of the resourceful British travellers, with even the (upper-class) women contributing to the The text leaves an overall impression of a celebration of model. unreconstructed Orientalism, advanced by the representation of the protagonist as a privileged, 19th century-style amateur intellectual in When William moots the idea of crossing the river into Gujjar combination with the narrator's pronouncement about the places and territory and climbing Pir Sar, Louisa is less than enthusiastic. She the people visited. For Edward Said, "Orientalism is premised on finds Pakistan hard going as she feels tired and frail. She does not exteriority; that is, on the fact that the Orientalist poet or scholar feel like climbing mountains. "Don't come then," William says." makes the Orient speak, describes the Orient, and renders its Anyway the Gujjars developed a taste for memsahibs during the Raj. mysteries plain for and to the West".In Xanadu is a nostalgic tribute You wouldn't be safe"(204-05). The phrase "developed a taste for" to past European travel to and writing about the Orient, and a central implies a regular habit and appreciation, as opposed to isolated component of the protagonist's characterization is this unspoken incidents. All Gujjars, from raj, to the present, are represented as relationship with Orientalism. By utilizing the opening phrase of automatically inculcated with this "taste." This representational Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Kubla khan" for the title of his first strategy is embedded with ideas about racial traits and types and travel book, Dalrymple achieves a collection of effects. The spurious genetic theories that might transmit this "taste "to reference works to position the text in a particularly British, romantic successive generations. William Dalrymple's In Xanadu: A Quest: A Post Colonial Perspective 127 128 Mukta Sharma

William Dalrymple can be seen as aligned with earlier famous The contrast advanced here comes down to one of differences in writersIn Xanadu such as The great Robert Byron (Road to Oxania) levels of cultural and economic capital. William and Laura have and Sir Henry Yule (The Travels). He enacts the 19th century sufficient that they can study history and travel for pleasure, while gentleman traveller in 1980s, making imperially inflected forms and Rajeep studies law and stays in Turkey with his family. University conventions of travel and cultural encounter accessible. His studies, of all the possible aspects of William's character are used to characterization of William clearly reflects the self-conscious, upper- illustrate this difference in status is chosen to advance this point. class and very British lineage to whichIn Xanadu subscribes. One of the most dramatic examples of the power and usefulness of a Central to the characterization of William is his positioning as an Cambridge education is evident in William's experience of being intellectual. Constant reference is made to the study undertaken, interrogated by an Iranian Police Officer, who suggests that he might books carried, and to the fact that Dalrymple and his companions are be a spy. In desperation to prove that he is a student, not a spy, travelling during their long university vacation. A good British William hands the police Officer his University Library Card: schooling is seen to equip the travellers for survival and success in foreign lands, as Dalrymple narrates William's and Laura's attempt at "What is this?" he said. He looked at the card. Then he looked up. boarding a bus in the crowded station of Latakia: "We got aboard in "You are at Cambridge?" "Yes." "Cambridge University?" our third attempt. The school years of cold scrum practice in wet, "Cambridge University." His expression changed. "Oh Agah", he February North Yorkshire were finally put to good use; we charged said. "By the great Ali! This is the most famous University in the forward like a pair of props forwards swinging our rucksacks, world." He examined the card, "Ah my heart! Look at this card. mercilessly knocking everyone flying; only the Bedouin got in Expiry date June eighty-seven. Borrowing October eighty-six Five before us"(33). Even better than this schooling, however is the fact vols. Oh Agah. For me these are magic words." "For me too." "Agah that Dalrymple is not simply a student, but a student at Cambridge I am your servant." I sat up. "Do you mean that?" "Agah, you are a University's Trinity College. scholar. I am at your service." He did mean it (142). William has many conversations with people from the various On the rare occasion that Laura does not come to William's rescue, countries through which he passes about the university, most Cambridge does. The mere mention of the famous University is involving some comparison between Oxford and Cambridge and capable of transforming antagonists into assistants. "All afternoon their local counterparts, or reference to the fame and centrality of Reza drove us around the monuments of Savah"(142). Oxbridge. These instances are expressions of an overt Anglo- A sense of cultural superiority is evident in the many comparisons criticism. Another example of expression of such sentiments is between Oxbridge and other educational institutions encountered. William's exchange with Rajeep a local of Sis who houses the William then uses the authority of his superior education and traveller for the night: proceeds to make a succession of quick, generalized and, to a great He studied law at the Bosphorous University-in Istanbul-and had a extent, harsh judgments about most of the places visited. Dalrymple's T-shirt to prove it. He was appalled to learn that we both studied treatment of Latakia forms an example. "The food if you can find it- history. "In Turkey history has no value," he said as he Walked us to is the worst in the Middle East, the people the least friendly" (33). his home. "The only serious subjects are engineering, medicine, law His notes of Latakia's population: "They mix Arab deviousness with and economics." colonial French arrogance, and add to this a surliness which uniquely their own"(33). Stereotypes are rehearsed with abandon. With the He was, however, reasonably impressed that we were from Oxford and Cambridge: "I have heard People say that they are quite good locals being othered further through relegation to the Stone Age: "We Universities' (77-78). reached the town in a Neolithic late-evening gloom. Dogubyazit was William Dalrymple's In Xanadu: A Quest: A Post Colonial Perspective 129 130 Mukta Sharma full of sinister swarthy Turks. A few had slit eyed Mongol features Laura work in the past few weeks, this must be the Most spectacular. They wore ragged waist-coats and stared deadpan from open I have one other letter in front of me. This I organized (although doorways"(112). When a particular national type is insufficient for acting on Laura's instructions). This second letter is written on a fullness of description, then a racial/cultural comparison (which paper so thick it almost approaches Parchment and bears the crest of invokes a hierarchical vision of cultures and races) is utilized to aid Trinity College, Cambridge. If it is to be believed any Obstacle to the description: our expedition could well prove a major blow to the study of the Orient as we Know it (181-82). Never have I seen a train less likely to raise the spirits. It could not have been further from an Indian carriage. There, for all the This is the most overt acknowledgment of the extent to which in discomfort, the seats are packed with people busily unrolling Xanadu's central character is a contemporary version of the bedding, setting up primuses, cooking supper and generally making traditional orientalist figure. themselves at home. Walking into an Indian train is like walking into Works cited an Indian village. Entering a Turkish train is like finding oneself in a solitary confinement cell (108-09). Cannadine, David. Ornamentalism: How the British Saw Their Empire. London: Allen lane, 2001. Print These hierarchical nuances of racial comparisons become more overt Clarke, Robert"Travel and Celebrity Culture". Travel and Celebrity when Dalrymple actively compares the places and people he Culture. Ed. Robert Clarke, Spec, issue of Post colonial Studies 12.2 encounters with Britain and the British: (2009) Print. They were bareheaded and far-removed from noble Afghan of travel books they did not talk Did not talk of gardening or Persian poetry; instead they questioned us closely about the West:"ls Inglistan better than Pakistan?" "In some ways." "Pakistan is a country of dogs." I Painted a much romanticized picture of Cambridge and they promised to come and visit me. "ls It far to drive?" "Very far."I thought how they will look driving down King's Parade in their Truck; we could take them punting. The Imperialist power invoked by William and his companions manifests most strongly in its icons and symbols. These are carried reverently and described in great detail by Dalrymple: Before we left Britain Laura wrote to enlist the aid of the permanent undersecretary at the Foreign office. I have the reply in front of me. It is written on a piece of thick, heavily embossed Paper with a lion and a unicorn at the top right-hand corner. From it, it would appear that the The permanent under-secretary is a personal friend of Laura's. It also appears that the Embassy in Peking has been instructed to contact the Chinese Foreign Ministry to arrange an Express permit that the embassy in Islamabad is waiting to help us with the Pakistani Civil Service. Of all the wonders I have seen Journal of Rajasthan Association for Studies in English10: 131-137 (2014) 132 Pankaj Vyas and Mehzbeen Sadriwala

named as Achipur, after Tong Achew. Achew's grave and a Chinese temple is still seen in Achipur.[6] Western vis-a-vis Oriental Travelogues- Portuguese India The Chinese Community in India Chinese children who were kidnapped by the Portuguese from China were sold as slaves in Portuguese India. The Portuguese were alleged Pankaj Vyas to have eaten some of the Chinese children. In Portuguese India, the Mehzbeen Sadriwala Indian Muslim Kunjali Marakkars fought against the Portuguese and raided their shipping. One of the Kunjali Marrakars (Kunjali IV) “Just as a painter paints, and a ponderer ponders, a writer writes, and rescued a Chinese boy, called Chinali, who had been enslaved on a a wanderer wanders.” – Roman Payne Portuguese ship. The Kunjali was very fond of him, and he became The Chinese communities in India are a community of immigrants one of his most feared lieutenants, a fanatical Muslim and enemy of and their descendants that emigrated from China starting in the late the Portuguese, terrorizing them in battle. The Portuguese were 18th century to work at the Calcutta port and Madras Port. terrorized by the Kunjali and his Chinese right hand man, eventually, Government sources cited by a Deutsche Welle article in 2013 puts after the Portuguese allied with Calicut's Samorin, under Andre the number of Chinese in Kolkata around 2,000, most of whom live Furtado de Mendoça they attacked the Kunjali and Chinali's forces, in or near Chinatown in Tangra. and they were handed over to the Portuguese by the Samorin after he reneged on a promise to let them go. Diogo do Couto, a Portuguese The ethnic Chinese have contributed too many areas of the social and historian, questioned the Kunjali and Chinali when they were economic life of Kolkata. Today a majority are engaged in business captured. He was present when the Kunjali surrendered to the with a major segment involved in the manufacturing and trade of Portuguese, and was described: "One of these was Chinale, a leather products. A sizeable number are also owners and workers in Chinese, who had been a servant at Malacca, and said to have been Chinese restaurants. Kolkata is the only city in India to have a the captive of a Portuguese, taken as a boy from a fusta, and Chinatown; the only other Chinatown to exist (in Mumbai) has afterwards brought to Kunhali, who conceived such an affection for disappeared. him that he trusted him with everything. He was the greatest The first record of travel from China is provided in the travelogue of exponent of the Moorish superstition and enemy of the Christians in Fa-Hien who visited Tampralipta, in what is now Tamluk in the 5th all Malabar, and for those taken captive at sea and brought thither he century AD. Records of immigration for the next sixteen centuries invented the most exquisite kinds of torture when he martyred them." are not reliable although many words in Bengali can be attributed to However, de Couto's claim that he tortured Christians was Chinese influences. For example chini, the Bengali word for "sugar" questioned, since no other source reported this, and has been comes from the word for China, and words like Chinamati for described as lacking credibility. porcelain china hint at Chinese influences. British India The first recorded Chinese settler in India is Tong Achew,a trader Chinese Newspaper Published in Kolkata who landed near Budge Budge in late 18th century. Achew set up a Kolkata, then known as Calcutta, was the capital of British India sugar cane plantation along with a sugar factory. Achew brought in a from 1772 to 1911. It was also geographically the easiest accessible band of Chinese workers to work in his plantation and factory. This metropolitan area from China by land. The first person of Chinese was the first Chinese settlement in India. Achew died shortly after origin to arrive in Calcutta was Yang Tai Chow who arrived in 1778. and the Chinese settlers moved to Kolkata. The place came to be He worked in a sugar mill with the eventual goal of saving enough to Western vis-a-vis Oriental Travelogues-The Chinese Community in India 133 134 Pankaj Vyas and Mehzbeen Sadriwala start a tea trade. Many of the earliest immigrants worked on the out in a row with their severed heads carefully placed on their Khidderpore docks. A police report in 1788 mentions a sizable shoulders. It turned out that the wily Chinamen, on being overtaken, Chinese population settled in the vicinity of Bow Bazaar Street. had at first pretended to surrender and had then suddenly attacked the police and killed them with their own weapons." These escaped During the time of Warren Hastings, the first governor-general of Chinese convicts had children with Tamil Paraiyan women, who British India, a businessman by the name of Tong Achi established a were documented by Edgar Thurston. Paraiyan is also anglicized as sugar mill, along with a sugar plantation at Achipur, 33 km from "pariah". Calcutta, on the bank of the Hooghly River near Budge Budge. A temple and the grave of Tong Achi still remain and are visited by Edgar Thurston described the colony of the Chinese men with their many Chinese who come from the city during the Chinese New Year. Tamil pariah wives and children: "Halting in the course of a recent anthropological expedition on the western side of the Nilgiri plateau, One of the earliest records of immigration from China can be found in the midst of the Government Cinchona plantations, I came across in a short treatise from 1820. This records hint that the first wave of a small settlement of Chinese, who have squatted for some years on immigration was of Hakkas but does not elaborate on the professions the slopes of the hills between Naduvatam and Gudalur, and of these immigrants. According to a later police census, there were developed, as the result of ' marriage ' with Tamil pariah women, into 362 in Calcutta in 1837. A common meeting place was the Temple of a colony, earning an honest livelihood by growing vegetables, Guan Yu, the god of war, located in the Chinese quarter near cultivating cofl'ce on a small scale, and adding to their income from Dharmatolla. A certain C. Alabaster mentions in 1849 that Cantonese these sources by the economic products of the cow. An ambassador carpenters congregated in the Bow Bazar Street area. As late as 2006, was sent to this miniature Chinese Court with a suggestion that the Bow Bazar is still noted for carpentry, but few of the workers or men should, in return for monies, present themselves before me with owners are now Chinese. a view to their measurements being recorded. The reply which came back was in its way racially characteristic as between Hindus and Some Chinese convicts deported from the Straits Settlements were Chinese. In the case of the former, permission to make use of their sent to Madras in India, the "Madras district gazetteers, Volume 1" bodies for the purposes of research depends essentially on a reported an incident where the Chinese convicts escaped and killed pecuniary transaction, on a scale varying from two to eight annas. the police sent to apprehend them: "Much of the building work was The Chinese, on the other hand, though poor, sent a courteous done by Chinese convicts sent to the Madras jails from the Straits message to the effect that they did not require payment in money, but Settlements (where there was no sufficient prison accommodation) would be perfectly happy if I would give them, as a memento, copies and more than once these people escaped from the temporary of their photographs." Thurston further describe a specific family: buildings' in which they were confined at Lovedale. In 186 seven of "The father was a typical Chinaman, whose only grievance was that, them got away and it was several days before they were apprehended in the process of conversion to Christianity; he had been obliged to by the Tahsildar, aided by Badagas sent out in all directions to 'cut him tail off.' The mother was a typical Tamil Pariah of dusky search. On 28 July in the following year twelve others broke out hue. The colour of the children was more closely allied to the during a very stormy night and parties of armed police were sent out yellowish tint of the father than to the dark tint of the mother; and the to scour the hills for them. They were at last arrested in Malabar a semi Mongol parentage was betrayed in the slant eyes, flat nose, and fortnight later. Some police weapons were found in their possession, (in one case) conspicuously prominent cheek-bones." Thurston's and one of the parties of police had disappeared–an ominous description of the Chinese-Tamil families were cited by others, one coincidence. Search was made all over the country for the party, and mentioned "an instance mating between a Chinese male with a Tamil at length, on 15 September, their four bodies were found lying in the Pariah female" A 1959 book described attempts made to find out jungle at Walaghát, half way down the Sispára ghát path, neatly laid what happened to the colony of mixed Chinese and Tamils. Western vis-a-vis Oriental Travelogues-The Chinese Community in India 135 136 Pankaj Vyas and Mehzbeen Sadriwala

According to Alabaster there were lard manufacturers and parlours in the city. Among services, dentistry is a traditional shoemakers in addition to carpenters. Running tanneries and working occupation that is being welcomed by the new generation. Many of with leather was traditionally not considered a respectable profession the shoe shops lining Bentick Street, near Dharmatolla, are owned among upper-caste Hindus, and work was relegated to lower and operated by Chinese. A number of restaurants dotting the city are castemuchis and chamars. There was a high demand, however, for also owned by the Chinese. Fusions of Chinese (especially Hakka) high quality leather goods in colonial India, one that the Chinese and Indian culinary traditions have given rise to a widely available were able to fulfill. Alabaster also mentions licensed opium dens run form, Indian Chinese cuisine. There is one Chinese newspaper by native Chinese and a Cheena Bazaar where contraband was published in the city, The Overseas Chinese Commerce in India but readily available. Opium, however, was not illegal until after India's figures from 2005 show that sales have dwindled from 500 to 300 Independence from Great Britain in 1947. Immigration continued copies sold. At one time, 90% of the students of the Grace Ling unabated through the turn of the century and during World War I Liang English School were ethnic Chinese. In 2003 they comprised partly due to the fact that China was undergoing political upheavals only about 15% of the 1500 students. such as the Opium Wars, First Sino-Japanese War and the Boxer Rebellion. Around the time of the First World War, the first Chinese- Many of the Chinese of Kolkata are Christians. A large number of owned tanneries sprung up. the younger generations became Christians due to the influence of missionary schools they studied in. The Chinese New Year remains Sino-Indian War of 1962 widely observed. Hakka Chinese of Kolkata tends to beendogamous During the Sino-Indian conflict, the Chinese faced anti-national but at the same time have integrated into Kolkata society by learning sentiment unleashed by the Indian National Congress-dominated the Bengali language. government. Chinese businesses were investigated for links to the Chinese government and many people of Chinese origin were The Silk Road has many aspects. It is a study in history, geography, interned in prisons in North India. commerce, religion, culture, art, food, fashion and also exciting travel and tourism. Anyone having interest in any of these will love India's Independence from Britain did not hinder the influx of to be on the Silk Road. It should be of particular interest to the Indian Chinese into Kolkata. In 1961, there were close to 7,000. The Sino- tourist who will be amazed at the beauty of the sites in China, the Indian War of 1962 ended further immigration from communist affinity and fusion of art styles, cultures and cuisine with India. At China. An unknown number left (mostly for Australia, Canada, and every corner they will find India and become aware of the closeness the United States). Further, those that remained were often suspected that India and China shared since ancient times. of collaboration with an enemy nation. According to a 2005 documentary, some were sent to an internment camp in Rajasthan. Although both the countries were exchanging travelers on a gigantic The situation was alleviated when India and China resumed scale since ancient times on the Silk Road and its other trading diplomatic relations in 1976. However, it was not until 1998 that branches like the Spice Road, Jade Road, Tea Road, Salt Road, Musk ethnic Chinese were allowed naturalized Indian citizenship. In 2005, and the Horse Road, in modern times the two countries are yet to the first road sign in Chinese characters was put up in Chinatown, promote the Silk Road as a common circuit. The border issue is the Tangra. main reason for this. While opening of the Silk Road circuit may Today take some time, it is bound to open as India and China – the closest neighbours and the fastest growing economies of the world – can The Chinese today work as tannery-owners, sauce manufacturers, reach number one position only if they complement each other and shoe shop owners, and restaurateurs. A number of them run beauty do not treat each other as rivals. Western vis-a-vis Oriental Travelogues-The Chinese Community in India 137 Journal of Rajasthan Association for Studies in English10: 138-148 (2014)

Works Cited Bachi, Kaarkaria.”Bells Tolls for China Town”. India Times: 28 April, 2004. Print An Area of Darkness: India as seen Boxer, Ralph.Fidalogs in the Far East. 1968. Print by V.S. Naipaul Chatterji, Suniti. The Origin and Development of Bengali language. Calcutta: University of Calcutta Press, 1926. Print Rekha Tiwari Krishna, Murali.”India's Dwindling China Town .” Deutsche Welle. 17 October, 2013. Print A classic of modem travel writing,An Area of Darkness is Nobel Nambiar. K. Odayamadath.The Kunjalis admirals of Calicut. Asia Pub. laureate V.S. Naipaul's profound reckoning with his ancestral house, 2 March, 2012. Print homeland and an extraordinarily perceptive chronicle of his first Pinto, Jeanette.Salvery in Portuguese India. Calcutta: Himalaya publication encounter with India. V. S Naipaul has always been a controversial House, 1992. Print figure. Whether it is for his rude behaviour towards fellow writers at Ray, Haraparasad. ”Chinese Banglapedia. 23 August, 2003. Print conferences or his show of support for India's Hindutva ring, Subramanyam, Sanjay. The Portuguese Empire in Asia: A Political and Bharatiya Janata Party or his admission in his autobiography that his Economic History. p.240. 2012. Print callousness killed his wife, this Trinidadian author has always been some sort of an enfant terrible of English literature. For all his genius, he also remains a vilified figure in India and not without reason.An Area of Darkness, when it was published in 1964, created an uproar among Indians and was intensely criticized for its unkind, deriding and supercilious view of India. Naipaul's literature, much like his personality demonstrates a certain extremism-where there are few or no grey areas. And that is most evident inThe Area of Darkness. The book is about how Naipaul built a 'mythical' image about India staying in Trinidad (Naipaul's grandfather was from India and they re-located to West Indies - in a small British colony called Trinidad) and how his one-year visit to India shattered his childhood image of the country. The entire experience is a deeply personal one - and Naipaul himself behaves like a rather fussy, ungenerous foreign-returned guy (he was just about 30 years old) who criticises the loss of his 'imagined world' without bothering to delve into the reasons for it. This was a plundered country that was struggling to fight its colonial past and tackle some enormous problems at hand. This novel is part autobiography and part travel genre. Naipaul writes about his experiences in India over span of one year. It is written in the first person narrative voice and Naipaul uses descriptive passages very well to outline his themes. Traveling from An Area of Darkness: India as seen by V.S. Naipaul 139 140 Rekha Tiwari the bureaucratic morass of Bombay to the ethereal beauty of The history of these Brahmins was one of great poverty and Kashmir, from a sacred ice cave in the Himalayas to an abandoned wretchedness; and to the generations that followed the first arrivals temple near Madras, Naipaul encounters a dizzying cross-section of in Trinidad those early traumas were fresh in the memory. Naipaul, a humanity: browbeaten government workers and imperious servants, third-generation Indian, had just begun to outgrow this painful past a suavely self-serving holy man and a deluded American religious when he went to India. But India, poor and abject, was to revive in seeker.An Area of Darkness also abounds with Naipaul's strikingly the most unexpected way all the fears and insecurities he had known original responses to India's paralyzing caste system, its apparently as a child. serene acceptance of poverty and squalor, and the conflict between its desire for self-determination and its nostalgia for the British raj. Naipaul wrote on the penultimate page ofAn Area of Darkness - a The result maybe the most elegant and passionate book ever written record of intense fear and anguish. But if this book was only about a about the subcontinent. lacerated sensibility, similar to books by certain kinds of western travellers to India, it would not be read any more. Remarkably, for a V. S Naipaul first visited India in 1962. The book emerging out of travel book published in 1964, it has outlasted its time; and it has that visit,An Area of Darkness, remains a valuable record of an India done so because of literary virtues that sound simple but are hardest in transition - an India losing, under a weak and exhausted Nehru, a to achieve: honesty and directness. war with China, and losing along with it its flush of post- independence idealism and innocence. Many different ideas and Anger and fear made Naipaul see things other travellers miss. Few expectations prompted Naipaul's first visit to India. He left Trinidad, writers had ever said as many incisive things about the cultural where he was born in 1932, when he was 18 to study at Oxford. He encounter between India and Britain as found in the chapter titled had wanted to be a writer and had travelled to England, which was “Fantasy and Ruins”. The work abounds in startling new perceptions, then the centre of the world for English-speaking colonials and for many writers and intellectuals in India, it became a crucial everywhere. part of their self-education - Naipaul's radical interpretation of Gandhi, among other things, disturbed. The life in London to which he had looked forward had turned out to be “sterile” and “mean”. But what were the alternatives? What were Serious-minded travellers to India continue to read Darkness as a the places he could think of as “home”, as the centre of his world. On guide to a range of bewildering Indian attitudes. Others cherish it for his first visit, Naipaul took with him the conventional ideas of India - Naipaul's descriptions of places - particularly of Kashmir - which are the India people then knew as the land of Gandhi and Nehru, the precise and lyrical, without ever relying on the heavy vocabulary India of the glittering classical past, which had been meticulously deployed by, for instance, Jan Morris. And in Naipaul's own dredged up by European Indologists in the 19th century. He took intellectual journey, it is an important landmark. The Middle with him his own childhood memories of an old India, the Passage, Naipaul's first travel book, is largely conventional in form Brahmanic world of rituals and myths that had been carefully and content. The unique mingling of social enquiry and preserved in Trinidad. This past held an emotional charge for autobiography that marks Naipaul's later non-fiction (and indeed his Naipaul. His ancestors had come to Trinidad as indentured labourers fiction) first occurred inAn Area of Darkness. it is where you can see in the last quarter of the 19th century. The regions of North India him developing his special ways of seeing and working towards new they lived in were systematically rendered destitute by the British in kinds of knowledge about himself, about India, about the “half-made the post-mutiny period. Brahmins had been a special target. The long societies” that would become his subject in later books. it is where he sea voyages to the “Great Unknown” - the Caribbean, Fiji, Mauritius began to find that elusive centre of his world - the centre that lay not - violated caste rules but were made necessary by the surrounding in any particular place but in the many areas of darkness of his own dereliction. richly diverse past. An Area of Darkness: India as seen by V.S. Naipaul 141 142 Rekha Tiwari

This book becomes an interesting read because of the author's Poverty is not new to the author, he accepts it passively. He unique- background. Born in an Indian family in Trinidad, he spent unflinchingly observes the unhygienic life styles, squalor, and his childhood listening to the stories about India. Later part of his diseased human conditions. His analysis of paralyzed caste system life, where he established as a writer, he spent in England. So this is a and its effects on the society is very precise: personality, who has lived in two extremes of the world and who is discovering a diverse country like India for the very first time. “An eastern conception of dignity and function, reposing on Naipaul had certain expectations and a faint picture from his symbolic action: this is the dangerous, decayed pragmatism of caste. childhood memories about his ancestral land. But when the actual Symbolic dress, symbolic food, symbolic worship: India deals in encounter began, he could not relate to this country or its people on symbols, inaction. Inaction arising out of proclaimed functions, any level. functions out of caste... But at the heart of the system lies the degradation of the latrine-cleaner, and that casual defecation in a Naipaul keeps a certain distance from his subjects and this veranda which Gandhi observed in 1901.” detachment makes his work authentic and original. How many times we have seen a writer having emotional attachment with its subjects, “...But the truth is that Indians do not see these squatters and might making it difficult to get the true account of things? Naipaul even, with complete sincerity, deny that they exist: a collective succeeds in being the unsentimental observer.” His are the original blindness arising out of Indian fear of pollution and resulting responses to India. Naipaul criticizes almost every aspect of India. conviction that Indians are the cleanest people in the world. He sees When he sees India, he does not see the rich spiritual heritage or the the attitudes of accepting traditions blindly and never questioning longest lasting ancient civilization. Instead, he sees the country, ones own belief system. He sees a country whose people have pride which has stripped off its resources. He doesn't see the country which of belonging to the oldest lasting tradition, but have a very strong had given birth to so many great religions. Instead he points out, how reluctance to grow. Naipaul's criticism extends into every aspect of the great ideas and concepts of religions have wrongly ingrained into Indian culture, language, people, and history. No negative attitude the society. He thinks that those ideas and traditions are decaying escapes his eye, including subtle Indian habit of escaping into the Indian society for generations: land of imagination to avoid the painful reality of existence: “...'And do thy duty, even if be humble, rather than another's, even if “It is well that Indians are unable to look at their country directly, for it is great. To die in one's duty is life: to live another's is death.' This the distress they would see would drive them mad. And it is well that is the Gita, preaching degree fifteen hundred years before they have no sense of history, for how then would they be able to Shakespeare's Ulysses, preaching it today.. .The man who makes the continue to squat amid their ruins, and which Indian would be able to dingy bed in the hotel room will be affronted if he is asked to sweep read the history of his country for the last thousand years without the gritty floor. The clerk will not bring you a glass of water even if anger and pain? It is better to retreat into fantasy and fatalism, to you faint. The architecture student will consider it a degradation to trust to the stars in which the fortunes of all are written and to regard make drawings, to be a mere draughtsman.“ the progress of the rest of the world with the tired tolerance of one “Caste sanctioned by the Gita with almost propagandist fervour, who has been through it all before...” might be seen as part of the older Indian pragmatism, the 'life' of classical India.lt has decayed and ossified with the society, and its “Eighteenth-century India was squalid. It invited conquest. But not in corollary, function, has become all: the sweeper's inefficiency and the Indian eyes: before British came, as every Indian will tell you, the merchants' short-sighted ruthlessness are inevitable.. .Every man India was rich, on the brink of an industrial breakthrough;.. .Indian is an island; each man to his function, his private contact with God. interpretations of their history are almost as painful as the history This is the realization of the Gita's selfless action. This is caste...” itself; and it is especially painful to see the earlier squalor being An Area of Darkness: India as seen by V.S. Naipaul 143 144 Rekha Tiwari repeated today,... A people with a sense of history might have defecate everywhere'. And this is a bit strange considering half the ordered matters differently. But this is precisely the saddening book is dedicated to his three-month long stay in a cozy, pampered element in Indian history: this absence of growth and development..” House Boat in the picturesque Kashmir valley. Yet, Naipaul sees no beauty in the land. Naipaul notices the effects of quick fix solutions to the caste problem and his advice still holds good. He finds the insights of Nehru and Naipaul makes some very sound points when he talks of India being other writers into India as romantic, he admires Gandhi and clearly a country of symbolic, speech-making gestures. Whether it was the understands his struggle and failure: '60s or today, action is by way of symbols rather than concrete measures. He's also right to be irritated about Indians and their “.. .He looked at India as no Indian was able to; his vision was direct, stubborn unwillingness to see what is obvious. They turn a blind eye and this directness was, and is revolutionary. He sees exactly what to what is painful or disgusting and go about their business like the visitor sees; he does not ignore the obvious. He sees the beggars nothing happened. This is important because not much has changed and the shameless pundits and the filth of Banaras; he sees the for in India in this respect. They continue to be escapists. atrocious sanitary habits of doctors, lawyers and journalists. He sees Economically of course, the country has progressed by leaps and the Indian callousness, the Indian refusal to see. No Indian attitude India is surging forward more confidently than it ever did. escapes him, no Indian problem; he looks down to the roots of the static, decayed society. And the picture of India which comes out of It's difficult to take Naipaul's criticism seriously because most of it his writings and exhortations over more than thirty years still holds; seems like. an effort to deconstruct the notion of India. There this is the measure of his failure..” perverse cynicism at work and the author, while criticising the country's present, makes no effort to understand its tumultuous recent “Reserving government jobs for untouchables helps nobody, It places past or look into its prospects. Hence, even as a piece of work, it responsibility in the hands of the unqualified... It is the system that remains a highly personal account which unjustly creates and has to be regenerated, the psychology of caste that has to be reinforces colonial prejudices. destroyed. So Gandhi comes again and again to the filth and excrement of India, the dignity of latrine-cleaning; the spirit of Two of his observations in particular are condescending and service.” unjustifiable. Naipaul talks of how incongruous India's premier buildings appear in the face of its squalor and poverty. “It is building Naipaul thinks that as with every other great Indian figure, India for the sake of building, creation for the sake of creation... .In the undid Gandhi. Nation accepted him as Mahatma (the great soul), but North, the ruins (forts etc) speak of waste and failure and the very forgot his message almost instantly. grandeur of the Mughal buildings is oppressive. Europe has its From the moment he arrives in the country, he applies his own litmus monuments of Sun-Kings, its Louvres and Versailles. But they are test on it and decides it's a failed nation on every count. So to part of the development of a country's spirits.” Naipaul, the weather is oppressive, the poverty is horrifying, people In a display of unimaginable bad faith, he even suggests that the Taj squat defecating all over the place, they serve food with unclean Mahal could be transported slab by slab to United States and re- hands, they overcharge customers and what more, even their films erected and it would seem wholly admirable. There, he implies that don't offer a respite! Naipaul has not one good thing to say about the the edifice would serve a meaning. Here, he says, it is only a despot's country but doesn't show the slightest hesitation to indulge in gross monument with poverty around it. overstatements and ridiculous generalizations with comments like 'Indians lack in courage... they have been known to go on Again, he talks of how the English language is the 'greatest picknicking on a bank while a stranger drowned' or that 'Indians incongruity of British rule' and has caused 'psychological damage' to An Area of Darkness: India as seen by V.S. Naipaul 145 146 Rekha Tiwari the country through its continued official use. English, Naipaul Indian bazaar. Naipaul recounts many anecdotes among them one should know was never thrust upon Indians. Other countries resisted about a young couple called Rafiq arid Laraine. Rafiq is a poor it, Indians were attracted to it. Today, India constitutes one of the musician. They spend a good deal of time fighting but eventually largest English speaking nations and this has had tremendous impact they get married. They split up however as she is unable to bear the on its global appeal and economic progress. It's unfortunate that poverty in India. She returns home to America. Naipaul chose not to see at all the fascinating side of India- its Part three deals with how the British possessed the country splendid diversity, its colour and cuisines, its incredible warmth and completely. Their withdrawal was irrevocable. He speaks about the festivity - which today has made it one of the top most tourist English of the raj how they swaggered and had mannerisms and destinations in the world. The only aspect about India Naipaul seems to have really liked is its Railway system which he describes as 'too spoke a jargon. He mentions Kipling and how he is a good chronicler fine and complex' for a country like India. of Anglo-India. He talks about how the Taj Mahal is a great building without a function. The book is divided into three parts. Part one is entitled A Resting Place for the Imagination. He speaks about his ancestors coming to He goes on to speak about writers and how Indian attempts at the India as indentured labourers. He also deals with his first experiences novel reveal the Indian confusion further. Naipaul moves on to speak on the issue of race, of Muslims and Hindus. Naipaul was born an about Indian railways and how he befriended a Sikh while traveling unbeliever. He grew up in an orthodox Hindu family. In India he by train in the south of India. explains how caste comes to mean the brutal division of labor and He comes to the conclusion however that India for him remains an this was an unpleasant concept. While he was an unbeliever he was area of darkness. He has learned over the years his separateness his still saddened at the decay of old customs and rituals. Naipaul talks contentment with being a colonial without a past and without about the poverty in India and how it is one of the poorest countries ancestors. At the conclusion of the novel he tells us about his in the world. When he moves to London he find himself as one more encounter with an emaciated man called Ramachandra. This man face in the midst of Industrialized England. Naipaul speaks about the wants help to start litigation and get some land, which formerly Indian English mimicry and how this is just like fantasy. He goes on belonged to Naipaul's grandfather. Naipaul is disgusted at this to speak about the custom of defecating everywhere and how they incident and leaves in a mood of self-reproach. He talks about his refuse to acknowledge this fact. The approach to many villages is not flight home and how it was made up of anxiety and frustration. He a pleasant experience therefore. Naipaul speaks about Mahatma admits that the journey to India should not have been made as it Gandhi and how he was able to look at India squarely and see its broke his life in two. problems in a totally objective manner. The general vision given in this novel of India is somber and dark. Part Two opens with the image of a Doll's House on the Dal Lake. The titleAn Area of Darkness refers to India. Many of the negative This is in fact a hotel called Hotel Liward, which is situated in aspects of Indian culture are highlighted and Naipaul seems to see Kashmir. He speaks about his relationships with the various people the whole bleakness of the culture at every stage. Colonialism is an who worked in the hotel and the ensuing conflicts, which occurred. important issue in the story and again this is treated with a good deal We learn about the function of the Indian Civil Service. He is of ironic, detachment. Towards the conclusion of the story Naipaul encouraged to join a pilgrimage to the Cave of Amarnath the Eternal acknowledges that he should never really have returned to the Lord, which is ninety miles north of Srinagar. He, speaks about his country. joy and that of the other pilgrims as they climb the Himalayas and try to get inside a cave. Even though they are on a pilgrimage Naipaul Colonial India in the twentieth century forms the cultural context of states how as soon as they got inside the cave it was like a typical this novel. Naipaul gives the reader a vivid insight into the various An Area of Darkness: India as seen by V.S. Naipaul 147 148 Rekha Tiwari sects and cultural systems dominating this country. In Part Two of for the puniness, poverty and defeat in which they were set. He the novel Naipaul analyses the whole colonial process. There are mentions how these buildings strove to impose attitudes on people copious references to Hinduism and Muslims and Buddhism and he from both within and without. Overall the impression given in this paints some vivid pictures of the various customs, which these book of colonialism in India is extremely negative. people engage in. Poverty is a key aspect of this culture and Despite making some strong valid points, Naipaul almost never contributes a good deal, to the reason why he chose such a title for touches optimistic side of India. As if he has decided to turn a blind the novel. eye towards the positive side of things. For the most part, the book The story abounds with descriptions of the extreme poverty of India. remains a descriptive travelogue. His insights into his subjects are Naipaul describes India as 'the poorest country in the world.' He limited. He scores well on critical analysis of his subjects. But, analyses in a very logical way the reasons why he thinks Poverty throughout the book author's first impressions remain with him. exists in such a real way in India. He mentions at one stage how Many times prose sounds repetitive and banal with petty details. He 'divorce of the intellect from body labour has made of us the most fails to see the nation, which has just been given freedom, nation resourceless and most exploited nation on earth.' The concluding which is still trying to find its identity. He points out the problem, but section abounds in grim and rather depressing images of poverty. is unable to identify the root causes. He fails to capture the survival When Naipaul pays a trip to the village and meets the emaciated struggle, dreams, and aspirations of a common man. He fails to see Ramachandra who is surrounded in dire poverty he is appalled and the history and the effects of earlier Islamic and British invasions. simply wants to leave the country at once. Poverty is seen as a self- Author attributes earlier invasions to the static and decayed Indian defeating and destructive reality in this country. society. Naipaul speaks a good deal about the caste system in India. He Naipaul's description of India is impulsive and anecdotal. His failure describes it as the 'brutal division of labour' and something, which is is evident in the overall gloomy picture that comes out of his writing. unpleasant. He mentions how the cast system only imprisons a man But again this is the beauty of a travelogue, as it captures the true 'in his function' and makes so many people anonymous and faceless. responses of visitors. Indians who are born overseas are not accepted by the system and Works Cited have no identity. Freud, SigmundAn Autobiographical Study. N.Y. : Norton, 1952. Print One section of the novel is devoted to the theme of colonialism. He King, BruceMcMillan Modern Novelists: VS. Naipaul.: London: mentions at one stage how the country only pretends to be colonial,' Macmillan, 1992. Print yesterday the country's mimicry was Mogul, tomorrow it could be Naipaul, V.S.An Area of Darkness. New York : Vintage Books 1973. Print Russian or American.' He concludes by stating that the Indian Naipaul, V. S. 'Without a Place : Interview, Ian Hamilton' 1971, rpt. in English mimicry is like fantasy. When the British withdrew Savacou 9-10 (1974) andCritical Perspectives on VS. Naipaul. ed. completely from India something of fantasy remained attached to Hamner, Washington D.C., Three Continents Press, 1977. Print their presence there. He draws a comparison between colonial India and colonial Trinidad. Trinidad is a British colony but in size it is only a dot on the map and therefore it is important to be British. Naipaul states that the England of India was different 'an incongruous imposition' in his words. He goes on to state the negativity of colonialism and how he felt the coming together of India and England as a violation, buildings were too grand, too big Journal of Rajasthan Association for Studies in English10: 149-158 (2014) 150 H. S. Chandalia

known authors Fan Chengda and Xu Xiake wrote the travel accounts with a lot of topographical information embedded in them. Record of Stone Bell Mountain written by poet and statesman Su Shi had a moral and philosophical argument as its central purpose. Chinese Travel Writing and Ideology travellers who went to different parts of the world also contributed to travel writing through their works. XuanZang, known in India as H. S. Chandalia Hsuan –tsang was a Chinese traveller, scholar and translator who recorded his journey to India in his work Great Tang Records on the Travelling-It leaves you speechless and then turns you into a story Western Regions. This work became the basis of a novel Journey To teller: Ibn Batuta The West by Wu Chengen. FaXian was the first Buddhist Monk who The thirst for knowledge and the quest for exploring something new came to India. His travel experiences have been written in the book A has been an urge of human psyche from the very beginning. Through Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms. different forms of expression the observation and experience of The travel accounts of these travellers gave a new picture of India to people got reflected in human history. Journeys formed the first the Chinese people: vehicles of narrative literature and became acclaimed classics of sorts. In the course of history travel writing has assumed different Chinese pilgrims played a key role in the exchanges between types. They vary from a just a log book containing various ancient India and ancient China. They introduced new texts and destinations and distance covered to a perceptive account of the doctrines to the Chinese clergy, carried Buddhist paraphernalia travel experience with a certain literary value added to it. A good for the performance of rituals and ceremonies, and provided number of literary texts known as epics, novels and stories are also detailed accounts of their spiritual journeys to India. Records of fictional accounts of travels undertaken by the people who authored Indian Society and its virtuous rulers, accounts of the them. Though in all travel writing one thing that is common is that flourishing monastic institutions, and stories about the magical the focus lies on account of real or imaginary places. It may range and mystic prowess of the Buddha and his disciples often from documentary to the evocative, from literary to journalistic and accompanied the descriptions of the pilgrimage sites in their from humorous to serious. In the twenty first century with the advent travel records. In fact these travel records contributed to the of internet the concept of cyber travel and journeys in the virtual development of a unique perception of India among members of world have also come into being. the Chinese clergy. For some, India was a sacred, even Utopian, realm. Others saw India as a mystical land inhabited by The celebrated epic of Homer calledOdyssey described the journey 'civilised' and sophisticated people. In the context of Chinese of the Greek hero Odysseus' travelling to his home after the fall of discourse on foreign peoples, who were often described as Troy. Julius Caesar reported his journey during the Gallic War in the uncivilised and barbaric, these accounts significantly elevated Latin workCommentarii de bello Gallica . Greek writer Xenophone the Chinese perception of Indian society. (Sen24) (431-355 BC) composedAnabasis describing the expedition of a Persian Prince against King Artaxerxes II and the expedition of the Unlike the western travellers, especially Europeans, who landed in Greek Troops through Asia and back to Greece. various parts of the world and wrote about those lands rather in a contemptuous tone the Chinese descriptions, give a very realistic and In China travel literature has a long history. It became popular in iconic picture of the Indian society of those times. In Japan Sjourai Song Dynasty (AD 960-1279). It was termed as 'Youji Wenxue' in Moluroku(AD 804) by the author Kukai and the Tossa Nikki by Ki Chinese language which means “Travel Record Literature.” The well No Tsurayuki (Early 10th Century) were the early examples of travel Travel Writing and Ideology 151 152 H. S. Chandalia literature. The latter was considered as a revolutionary text because it Haklutus Posthumus (1625) which was used later as an important featured a female narrator.Oku no Hosomitsji (The Narrow Road to source book of foreign lands and cultures by natural philosophers. the Deep North) written by the Haiku poet Matsuo Basho in the James Cook's Diaries (1784) became very popular internationally. second half of the 17th Century weaves author's personal experience Many famous fiction writers of the Victorian Age wrote travel with the description of travel and places visited. accounts which were real and created works of fiction based on travels. Jonathan Swift'sGulliver's Travels, Daniel Defoe's Robinson The western travel writing coincides with the colonial expansion of Crusoeand Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness are some of these the empire. As the sailors started moving out in the Age of works. Charles Darwin's account of the journey of the HMS Beagle Renaissance in the quest of new lands which they could occupy for was a work of science, natural history and travel. Mark Twain, their interest, reports of the travels also started appearing. The American Novelist and Charles Dickens also wrote travel stories.

Million (1298AD) was an account of a Venetian traveller whose th st journey to China and Mongol Empire was recorded or got recorded Travel writing in 20 and 21 centuries has flourished significantly. by Morco Polo. Geoffrey Chaucer'sCanterbury Tales , though not a Besides publications in the form of books, it has appeared as a part of cyber literature with people writing blogs about their travel travelogue in the proper sense of the term, also describes a journey of experiences. Online publication has made travel writing easier and pilgrims to the cathedral of Canterbury. Moroccan world traveller Ibn more current. Social media sites also are being used to publish travel Batuta wroteRihla (The Journey) in 1355. notes, diaries and share photographs of the places visited. The The last decade of the 15th Century witnessed two milestones in the expansion of travel industry has also worked as a catalyst in the history of travel with Christopher Columbus setting his feet on the growth of travel literature. Some of the more popular travel writers American soil and Vasco Da Gama landing on the western coast of of the modern times include Bill Bryson, Paul Theroux, Pico Iyer, the Indian subcontinent. Experiences of the people who migrated to Douglas Adams, Anthony Sattin, Ryszard Kapuscinski, Kirla Salak the new lands were expressed in the form of travel literature which etc. The first online travel blog was posted by Jeff Greenwald on the was full of heroic tales of conquests of the colonisers. However, soon Global Network navigator in 1993.Vanessa Able travelled for ten the narratives of occupation were followed by the accounts of thousand kilometres in a Nano Car in India and wrote her notes in a blog which later she converted into a book called Nanologues “natural philosophy of the newly discovered phenomena”. Thus published in May 2013. travel literature soon became a source of knowledge in Natural Philosophy. Besides the quantity and variety, travel writing in the twentieth century has grown into a more complex kind of writing where it Francis Bacon, the father of English Essay, realising the importance mixes adventure, landscape, emotion and longing with a conscious of travel writing as sources of facts for the construction of natural exploration and depiction of an ideology also. A journey outside, histories promoted the study of travel literature. Leading Natural more often than not corresponds with a journey inside the self. Even Philosophers of the 17th century Richard Boyle and John Locke also before a person sets out for a journey, he undergoes a shift taking took up the travel literature as sources integrated with natural stock of the vicissitudes of what could be in store for him. Having philosophy. come to the end of the journey, he records the experiences of not just the physical distances negotiated, but also the mental and spiritual An English clergyman, Samuel Purchas, wrote Purchas His experiences felt by him. At times his entire personality undergoes a Pilgrimage (1613). This was a survey of the peoples of the world and transformation and returns a changed man with a new understanding their religion. This became very popular. Inspired by the success of of life, a new ideology-a Buddha after watching the various this text, he expanded using the papers of Richard Haklyut, East spectacles of pain and suffering is no more a King but an ascetic who India Company records and other manuscript material to write renounces everything to pursue his quest of truth. Travel Writing and Ideology 153 154 H. S. Chandalia

The great revolutionary hero of the Cuban Revolution Ernesto Che While reading this book I could understand the young Ernesto Guevara (1928-67) maintained a record of his experiences during his very well, the one who left Argentina with courage and in quest long travels in Latin American countries, African countries and also of his dreams which he later realised. This was the man who during his revolutionary struggle in Cuba. These have appeared in explored the reality of his continent, kept on maturing as a man the form of a series books namely Motor Cycle Diaries, The Bolivian and developed a social consciousness in himself. (16) Diary, The African Dream: The Diaries of the Revolutionary war in The Motor Cycle Diaries has become a popular text for the young Congo, Latin America Diaries, Congo Diary: The story of Che idealistic youth across the world. It builds up Che's image as a youth Guevara's “Lost” Year in Africa, Diary of A Combatant: The Diary who gradually becomes conscious of the socio-political realities of of the The Revolution That Made Che Guevara a Legend, his time and nurtures himself into a revolutionary with great Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War, Back on The Road: consciousness. He emerges as a real leader with a global vision of a A Journey Through Latin America etc. world and succeeds in translating it into reality. Jeruen Dery talks of It is interesting to learn that Ernesto Guevara began to travel a lot in Ernesto's growing consciousness as reflected in the Motor Cycle the very early part of his life due to his father's varied and usually Diaries in his review of the book: unfruitful business ventures. Later when he joined his school he had I appreciated the gradual mental change that was reflected in to travel some eighty kilometres daily to reach the provincial capital Che's writing. He had a middle–class rather affluent town of Cordoba by bus. As he moved to the University of Buenos background, and here he was, faced with the grim realities of Aires, he used to hitchhike to visit his family and friends. His motor South America. He encounters indigenous people such as bike tour of six weeks beginning Jan1, 1950 to Northern Argentina Aymara, the Quechua and the Yagua who live in the interior, can be considered to be the first major excursion he undertook. In and witnesses the poor realities that these people face. He also this tour he came in contact with the indigenousCoyas and dark encounters a leper colony and sees the unlucky situation that skinnedCabezitas Negras . This experience brought about a radical they are in. This gradually moulds his thinking into Marxism, change in his consciousness. Writing about this journey J.P. Spicer as evident in his prose. The final sentence especially illustrates Escalante comments: this, when he proclaims that he is sacrificing himself to the authentic revolution, bracing his body, ready for combat, as the Guevara envisioned himself as if on a rally-style raid, a term bestial howl of the victorious proletariats resounds with new with a clearly military resonance that foreshadows his later vigour and hope. travels as a rebel leader- yet this journey was also the beginning The comments show that the journeys undertaken by Ernesto are not of Che's transformation in terms of social consciousness. (395) just adventure tours but turn out to be a sort of inner journey of the This journey was followed by another six week voyage in February self as well. Though there is no “othering” of the outside world. In 1951 on an oil tanker Anna G as a male nurse during which he fact, it is a record of the author's initiatives to integrate with the visited Brazil, the Caribbean Basin, and a number of ports. Later he “Other” and internalise the experiences as a route to the travelled with his friend Alberto Granado across South American emancipation of all. As one travels through spaces, there is a continent on an old Norton bike, the experiences of which were corresponding journey taking place in his mind also. recorded inMotorcycle Diaries . This was also made into a film with Ernesto later set off on his second international trip during which he the same title. Alida Guevara, Che's daughter has written about the reached Mexico and met the Cuban rebel leader Fidel Castro. The transformation in his personality as reflected in the Motor Cycle meeting turned into a lasting relationship which culminated into his Diaries. In the foreword to this book she says: joining troops with Fidel Castro and his leading Cuba to a revolution. Travel Writing and Ideology 155 156 H. S. Chandalia

Initially he joined the revolutionary group of Cuban people as a Fidel and Che. This is in sharp contrast to the forces of Batista doctor but very soon he rose to be a commander of the guerrilla Government. Che and his comrades were sympathetic to the forces who successfully overturned the dictatorial regime in Cuba to wounded of not only their troops but also to the wounded of the replace it with the people's revolutionary forces. While he was busy enemy. The troops of the dictator Batista on the other hand did not in the struggle for the revolution in Cuba , Che did not miss writing care for their own wounded soldiers and abandoned them. Che writes his diaries. The long and short journeys by boat, bikes and through his experiences in these words: other modes, waging a war and fighting the army of the dictatorial Our attitude toward the wounded was in stark contrast to that of regime of Cuba he was constantly jotting down his notes since he Batista's army. Not only did they kill our wounded men, they knew that he was writing the history of the Cuban revolution. He abandoned their own. Over time this difference had an effect on encouraged other comrades also to write the accounts of their the enemy and it was a factor in our victory. Fidel ordered that experiences since he believed that everyone had his or her perception the prisoners be given all available medicine to take care of the and for a true holistic record the participation of every one was wounded. important. http://www.marxists.org/archive/guevara/1963/reminiscences/r During the twenty five months of revolutionary campaign in Cuba eminiscences.pdf from early December 1956 to later December 1958 Che kept a When the rebel troops were moving in the most inaccessible zones of journal as best as he could. After the triumph of the revolution these the Sierra Maestra, the forces of the Cuban government started air journals were published. Of these Reminiscences of the raids to flush them out. Since the air raids would not distinguish the Revolutionary War is very important. J.P. Spicer- Escalante writes civilian population from the rebels, it had been decided to force the about the significance of this account: people to escape to more secure places. Seeing such an exodus Che The polished version of the personal journal that Guevara kept was pained and recorded this in his travel writings: during his travels between 1956 and 1958 is much more than a Our eyes met with a pitiful spectacle: the day before, an army simple narration of events experienced; it is the textual locus corporal and one of the foremen had warned all the families in of Guevara's act of envisioning a post- capitalist society and the area that the air force was going to bomb the entire zone, subtly subverting the traditional bourgeois travel text. The and an exodus-almost all the peasants-toward the coast had prologue to Reminiscences is particularly illustrative of begun. No one knew of our presence in the area, so it was Guevara's subversive historical project. (396) evidently a manoeuvre on the part of the foremen and the Rural Che was conscious of the fact that the imperialist world would record Guard to take the land and belongings away from the peasants. the events of history with their class bias. In order to ascertain that But their lie had coincided with our attack and now became a the same could be checked he wanted a collective effort by those reality. Terror reigned among the peasants and it was who were actively engaged in bringing about the revolution in Cuba. impossible for us to stop their flight. It was like a revolutionary project which was as important as the http://www.marxists.org/archive/guevara/1963/reminiscences/r revolution itself. He wrote using the plural pronoun 'We' in order to eminiscences.pdf illustrate the collective spirit behind the entire scheme. He did not want it to be an exercise of his individual effort but a “collective The revolutionary forces could succeed only because of the support reconstruction of the guerrilla experience”. of the local of the local farmers who were already fighting the landlords. The revolutionary struggle to dethrone Baptista The accounts of warfare and care of the injured in the revolutionary government was not just for a change of government but in the true troops provide a clear picture of the ideology of the rebels led by Travel Writing and Ideology 157 158 H. S. Chandalia sense an attempt to change the system and also the social order. The Young, Tim and Forsdick. Travel Writing: Critical Concepts in Literary and nexus between the government and the landlords is well indicated in Cultural Studies. London: Routledge. 2012. Print theReminiscences and the partisan stand of the guerrilla warriors in Youngs, Tim.The Cambridge Introduction to Travel Writing. New York: the favour is also marked. Che writes: Cambridge University Press. 2013. Print At the time, Eutimio was serving us loyally. He was one of the http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/special/travel_records.pdf many peasants fighting for their land in the struggle against the http://blogcritics.org/book-review-the-motorcycle-diaries-by/JeruenDery/ big landowners, and anyone who fought them also fought the Friday, July 15, 2011 Rural Guard, who did the landowners' bidding. http://www.marxists.org/archive/guevara/1963/reminiscences/reminiscences .pdf http://www.marxists.org/archive/guevara/1963/reminiscences/re miniscences.pdf The travel writing of Che has been discussed variously by different critics. Maureen Moynagh inPolitical Tourism and Its Texts (2008) classifies the writings of Che Guevara as works of a 'political tourist' and goes to the extent of labelling Guevara as 'the Paradigmatic political tourist'.J.P. Spicer Escalante however, does not agree with what Moynagh has to say. He tries to differentiate between the one who would go for his political sympathies to another country and return in full safety as a tourist and the other who would lay down his life for his ideological commitments. He puts Che Guevara in the other category In fact the travel writings of Ernesto Che Guevara are an attempt to subvert the bourgeois travel writing just as his revolutionary action is an attempt to subvert the capitalist socio-political world order. To quote Escalate once again: Indeed a deeper understanding of Guevavara's objectives in Reminiscences points to the subversive radicality of his writings as a traveller and his contribution to the subversion of the order of both capitalist society and bourgeois travel writing through his travel writings on Cuba.(397) Works Cited Escalate, J.P. Spicer. “Ernesto Che Guevara, Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War, and The Politics of Guerrilla Travel Writing”. Studies in Travel Writing. Vo.15. No.4, Dec 2011. Routledge. Print Sen, Tansen. “The Travel Records of Chinese Pilgrims Faxian, Xuanzang and Yijing”.Education About Asia . Vo.11 Journal of Rajasthan Association for Studies in English10: 159-167 (2014) 160 Payod Joshi

water in smallSikora , just for livelihood – the scene exposes whole of the claims of development. With the travel of this rural area he comes to witness the existence of cast base differences, religious rituals, illiteracy and the various layers of underdevelopment. Philosophy of Change through Travel Looking to this miserable's state of life having many divisions he makes up his mind to bring out change in existing phenomena. He Payod Joshi decides to stay at that place with certain plans. Travel is not undertaken by body alone rather mind and This is not merely a story of a film, rather the truth of the every age consciousness also accompany the process of travel. There is an of history. There can be no change in society without the leader and intimate relationship between travel and philosophy. The base of the leader may get inclined for change only when his consciousness philosophy is free thinking. However thoughts spring from the is acquainted with the existing social surroundings. The father of the network of the contemporary milieu. Travel not only changes places Reformationism Martin Luther King was a teacher in the University but also it changes human- consciousness. The consciousness ofWittenberg . He was also a priest. He had to go to Rom in 1511. continuously dwelling only at one place becomes barren and dead. This journey brought out a mark in his life because there he got With travel this barrenness is broken and man's consciousness terribly hurt looking to the conduct and character of the superior acquires vitality and life to analyze human existence with a new ecclesiastical authorities.(32) He comes back with determination to perspective. In fact man is the product of his surroundings. Karl bring out total change in clergy. This leads the foundation of Marx rightly observes, Þ It is not the consciousness of the man, that reformation in Europe following his radical views which convince determines their existence, but on the contrary, it is their social that salvation is an issue involving between man and God, requiring existence, that determines their consciousness. ß (28) To bring out no rooms for sacraments, the rituals or even the priests to intervene. change in consciousness, one has to change the contemporary (67-68) surroundings. That is why travel is necessary because it provides the Even in India, renaissance could come only because of the precursors opportunity to bring out change in surroundings as well as in of social reformation, who undertook travels looking to their thrust consciousness. of knowledge. And only because of these journeys these reformers Travel breaks the rigidity in thinking of man and it paves the path for could come to know the reality of the existing social conditions. Raja change. Some years back, the movieSwadesh directed by Ashutosh Ram Mohan Roy, Swami Vivekanand, Swami Dayaynand Saraswati- Gowrikarnarrates the story of that hero who is an NRI and works as all three abandoned their homes very early and kept on traveling a scientist inNASA . He is brought up by a nurse after the death of his treasuring the most recondite forms of knowledge. parents. Just to take that nurse with him to America, he comes to Swami Dayanand Saraswati left his home at the age of fourteen and India and reaches the village. The nurse sends him to a small village then travelled different parts of northernIndia . During this period he to levy interest on the money which she has lent to some farmer. came across with the prevalent ignorance, superstitions, ill effects of During the journey of this village he comes across with poverty, casteism and the moral degeneration of the people. That is why he hunger and economic inequality sprung from the so called took vow to refine such a society .For this purpose he established the development model of Globalization. He, for the first time, realizes Arya Samaj which opposed the idolatry, rituals, casteism and the difference betweenIndia and Bharat . There is a scene in the untouchability. In the same way after the death of Ramkrishan movie where the hero is travelling in third class of the train holding a Paramhans Swami Vivekanandtravelled the entire India water bottle ofBisleri and on the other side a small boy is selling continuously for four years. On the one hand due to these travels Philosophy of Change through Travel 161 162 Payod Joshi

Vivekanand came to know about the economic inequality, social Bhudan Yagya was to shackle feudalism and to bring out equal backwardness and mental instability, on the other hand he got distribution of land among the landless farmers. He moved from acquainted with the cultural richness of India, the strength of Pabnar Ashramtowards Delhi and during the travel of these 62 days, conventions, grasping force of Indian Civilization and the latent he could get 19,436 acres land in the name ofBhudan . Due to the spiritual powers. charismatic consequence of these travels he could get 22,000 acres land in Bihar, 20,57,277 acres land inOrissa , 47,092 acres land in In fact travel relates the philosopher to the social reality. The hero of Andhra Pradesh, 1571 acres land in Kerala and 1,109 acres land in the movieSwadesh reminds us of the life of Mahatma Gandhi . Karnataka. (602) Gandhi was not only the charismatic leader of Indian freedom struggle rather he is regarded as one of the prominent thinkers of the Travel paves the path for comparative analysis. A philosopher world. Had he not held the intense experiences ofEngland and South undertakes the empirical study of other social surroundings and then Africa, he would never have been able to evolve the philosophy of he is able to bring out a comparative study of both the surroundings. Hind Swaraj. In fact his travel of England and South Africa has built The recently released movieQueen screens the story of a middle Gandhi as a thinker and philosopher. Due to these experiences, he class Indian girl who goes on travel of Europe and Amsterdam declared the western civilization as satanic civilization.(33) During looking to the breakup of her engagement. During this journey she his train journey inSouth Africa Gandhi falls prey to racial comes to know that women in Indian society are subjugated under discrimination which could later on initiate a long movement of various social taboos .There she realizes that Indian woman can Gandhi against racism, suppression and subjugation. In this way he never enjoy that much freedom which one can in the European foundSouth Africa as his Karmbhumi . In 1909 on his way from society. It is during this journey, she for the first time transcends England to Africa, he wroteHind Swaraj . It was under the herself from the disappointing environment to live her life in her own charismatic leadership of Gandhi that India could get united and way. Moreover she even recognizes her latent caliber which enables moved for political, social and economical change. His thorough her to have an independent existence. She learns driving, cooking, travelling of India was responsible for such movements. He dancing and even goes to clubs. She also shares her room with three undertook many voyages just to know about the nation and remained friends from different countries with different languages. This she onSatyagrah . The labour movement of Ahmadabad cotton industries manages with all her chastity and the social bindings which she has in 1918, the movement of boycott of foreign fabrics ofBombay in inherited from Indian culture. Her confidence is the remarkable 1921 and the eminentDandi Yatra undertaken as a salt satyagrah in outcome of this journey which is reflected in rejecting the fiancée. 1930 has been some initial movements led by Gandhi. Gandhi In this way heroine of the recently released movie Highway, comes visited almost each and every corner of nation which has been from the rich family. She has been kidnapped. The kidnaper is the recorded byMahadev Desai in his diary. Gandhi's travelings are hero of the movie who for the sake of ransom, keeps moving with important in the modern concept of globalization which requires to her by truck in the states ofHaryana, Rajasthan, Punjab and finally be researched separately. goes toHimachal Pradesh . The interesting part of the movie is that The entireBhudan Yagya movement led by Vinoba Bhave could take the heroine is not under stress looking to her kidnapping rather she place only by travel.Vinoba Bhave once visited the village feels excited. And even she starts loving the kidnapper. This could Panchanpalliof Golkunda district, Telangana where he witnessed only happen simply because during this movement with the the adverse social and economical conditions of farmers. It kidnapper she was able to have the open and independent motivated him to initiate hisBhudan Yagya from this place and he atmosphere which she could never enjoy at her home. With this started this movement on 18th April 1951. The main objective of this travel she is able to break the elitism, aristocracy and luxury of her Philosophy of Change through Travel 163 164 Payod Joshi family. She even enjoys Nature and countryside and comes across western imperialism. In fact in the early phase of freedom movement with the existence of other human beings. In this way her of India, travels played two types of roles---Firstly , the leaders and socialization also takes place. It may be taken as her internal journey. thinkers came across with the cultural civilization of Europe with She loves the kidnapper simply because he is true and transparent in their various innovative values and they were also able to bring out a his behavior. She feels that the man does not hold the hypocrisy comparative analysis both of the east and the west.Secondly , while which is conspicuous in almost all the members of her family. The travelling India these thinkers and leaders came to this conclusion pathetic part of the movie is that she had to fall prey to the sexual that apart from all racial, religious, regional and linguistic differences assault in her childhood from the business partner of her father but the Indians must have to share a common platform for freedom. she was forced to keep silence, even by her mother looking to the Surendranath Banargi realized this fact when the minimum age for social limitations of the society. The naked dance of this violence in ICS examination was reduced from 20 to 19. This step was intensely the name of so called social bindings has been a sort of intense opposed by Indian Association and to initiate the movement against comment on upper middle class which is characterized only by thisBanarji travelled the entire nation.(50) hypocrisy and emptiness. Through this kidnap and journey she Rabindra Nath Tagore is another prominent thinker who travelled the comes to know that the criminal is an honest individual having entire world. He went toItaly, Russia and America . During his Italy sensations but the circumstances have turned him towards crime. The tripMussolini appreciated him but he was quite against fascism. movie critiques our social structure which does not consider that man When he travelledRussia , he was fascinated by the conditions of the to be a criminal who indulges in sexual assault because he lives in labourers and he compared this state to the miserable conditions of our own family and who affects the economy of the business. Indian labourers. He wrote that in India the labourer should also get Indeed one may come to unearth the reality of social values, ideals the same rights which are held by them inRussia . (2-3) and bindings only when a person may come into the contact of the In this way it is very much conspicuous that the Indian renaissance outer world. Suppressed under various social rigidities for last so has been a consequence of the travels and journeys on the part of many years, Indian society could awaken only when it came into the social thinkers and reformers. contact of other cultures. The precursors of Indian renaissance could be able to bring out drastic changes in Indian society only through Travels influence the scope of philosophy. The great Greek intense traveling ofEurope and America . And from these journeys philosopher Plato undertook journeys ofItaly, Siciley and Egypt in they learnt the innovative concepts of European political philosophy 387 B.C. InEgypt he came to know the importance of division of like liberty, equality, justice and fraternity. These precursors are Sir labour among different classes which later on became the base of his Firoz Shah Mehta, Dada Bhai Norozi, and Gopal Krishan Gokhle, organic theory of state and the theory of Platonic justice. These two S.N. Banergi, R.N. Tagore etc. major theories get reflected in hisRepublic . Plato discusses the class system inTemase . Sicily was the main seat of the followers of Travels had been also responsible for the emergence of initial Pythagoras. During his Italy visit Plato came into the contact with liberalism in India. There had been some of the thinkers who could the followers ofPythagoras , who was not only a mathematician but establish liberal values in society simply because they went to a learned philosopher. One can find out clear impact of Pythagoras Europe and England for the sake of western education. Dada Bhai on his doctrine of education and justice. When Plato came back from Norozi, S.N.Banarji, Gopal Krishan Gokhle, V.S. Srinivasan were Sicily to Athens he established an academic institute named some of prominent thinkers who travelledEngland . There they got Acadamy. He wrote this epithet on the gate of Academy that who acquainted with the values of freedom and justice. But at the same does not know Mathematics will not get admitted here. Platonic time they did not forget to critique the imperialism policies of theory of justice basically reflects the theory of justice based upon Philosophy of Change through Travel 165 166 Payod Joshi square number given byPythagoras . His consistence journey of Italy Germany. But he spent his later phase of life in Belgium , France and and Sicily, which were full of the followers ofPythagoras , Plato last days inEngland . That is why his entire philosophy has been a could turn towards the philosophical precepts ofPythagoras . If it had mixture of three elements - German philosophy, French Political not taken place perhaps there would have been a different form of Thought and British Economics. Republic. (69) John Milton an eminent poet of English literature attacks the As compared to the travels undertaken byPlato , his disciple Aristotle scholastic philosophy of his times by favouring travel for one's own travelled little. After acquiring education fromAcademy of Plato , he exploration. He considers Geography to be an interesting subject. He started living withHernias , the ruler of Arsines , nearby Asia Miner . submits that instead of wasting time on useless philosophical After the murder ofHernias he shifted to Macedonia where he disputation one should tour the whole earth with the help of a map educatedAlexander and finally came back to Athens. Perhaps this is and see the places made famous by History and literature. Milton the reason thatAristotle as compared to his master Plato, remained undertakes the grand tour of Europe to complete his education. In intenselyHellenist . (122) Thomas Hobbes stands as one of the Paris Milton meets the Dutch jurist and statesman, Hugo, Grotius, in earliest great thinkers of England, travelled many countries of Florence he comes into contact with the members of the Accademia Europe from 1588 to 1619. He learnt much about the politicians and degli. In Florence he also meets Galileo. He talks about this meeting intellectuals during these journeys. He could meet thinkers, scholars in his famous work on censorshipAreopagitica . and scientist likeGalileo , Pyre Gasindi and Marine Mason . During Thus it can be concluded that travel is deeply associated with these trips he also met the eminent scholarDesecrate . Perhaps philosophy. Travel brings out change in surroundings and it changes having been influenced byDesecrate he accepted the argument of consciousness. The transformed consciousness breaks rigidity in theSkeptics and came to this conclusion the clear perception of the thinking and motivates the philosopher to form new theories for external world is impossible.(170) One can comprehend the activities betterment on the part of social customs and traditions. Travel also of mind only. It was impact ofGalelio on Hobbes that he analyzed brings an opportunity of comparative study of the existing the physical and political events with mathematical structure. At the phenomenon. end of theLeviathan , in chapter 31 he evolves the theorem of moral doctrine so that people may learn reigning and execution both. John Works Cited Locke, the decedent of Hobbes is regarded as profounder of Banerjee, S.N.,A Nation in Making , Bombey : Oxford University Press, liberalism. On some political mission he went to Clibes where he reprint, 1963. print metLoard Anthony Ashlay Kooper who later on became the first Earl Barker, Ernest,Greek Political Theory (Plato and his Predecessors) , New ofShaftsbari , an eminent figure in the court of Charles second. Delhi : BI Publications. print During this stayLocke came very close to Shaftsbari and he became Choudhary, Bibhas,English Social and Cultural History , New Dehli : PHI his friend, philosopher and political guide.Locke understood the Learning Pvt.Ltd., 2003. print responsibilities of the state as far as market and trade was concerned. Foster, Michael B., Masters of Political Thought, Vol.I (Plato to He also understood the concept of freedom of speech with the Machiavelli), 1975, Calcutta : Oxford University press. print doctrine of legitimate political system. Laslet writes, “In the initial Lasslet P.,John Locke's Two Treatise of Government , 1960, Cambridge : events of the Glorious Revolution, the Earl ofShaftsbari was an Cambridge University Press. print important figure who made Locke a real philosopher. (40) Marx, Karl,Capital, Philadelphia : Maple Press, 1ST edition. 2005. print The great exponent of socialismKarl Marx was born in Reinland Mukharji, Subrat and Ramaswamy, Sushila,Pashchyatya Rajnitik Chintan , who took his early education from Bon and Berln University of 2000, New Dehli : Hindi Madhyam Karyavyan Nideshalay, DU. print Philosophy of Change through Travel 167 Journal of Rajasthan Association for Studies in English10: 168-173 (2014)

Nagar, Purshottama,Adhunik Bhartiya Samajik avam Rajnitik Chintan , Jaipur : Rajasthan Hindi Granth Acadamy, 2009. print Nisbet R.,History of the Ideas of Progress , 1969, Newyork : Basic Books. print Sharda, Harvilas,Life of Dayanand Saraswati , Ajmer : Paropkarini Sabha, Travel Theatre: At a Glance 1968. print Sood, J.P.,History of Political Thought , Vol.II, Meerut : K. Nath and Co., Manish Ranjan 2006. print Tendulkar, D.G.,Mahatma , Vol.I, Bombay : Vithal bhai Jhawari, 1953. print The idea of travel has always motivated the imagination of man to Verma, Rajendra,Rabindra Nath Tagore: Prophet Against Tottalitiarianism , explore the places and people. Consequent to this it makes human 1964, Bombay : Asia. print mind to investigate things in its surroundings. Travel throws up endless opportunities and numerous dangers too. During travel the new findings are not always comfortable to everybody. But it attracts more than anything else. It comprises with a quest, an escape, a discovery, a re-discovery, inner strength, weakness, redemption etc. Most people tend to think of travel writing either as accounts of strange places and eccentric people or useful for expeditions. What is commonly understood to be modern travel writing tends to be a privileged genre with subsets like tourist information that makes travel seems comfortable and safe. But travel is not the same as tourism. Travel is described in opposition to tourism for various reasons especially because the self-conscious travel writer likes to project himself as an individual whereas regardless of advertisements promising unique holidays, the tourist is an anonymous member of a group. The Tourist wants a home away from home, but the traveler looks for adventure, even in a world where everything has been explained and discovered. On the basis of this context Travel Theatre i.e. a form of moving (mobile) theatre troupe is also somehow incorporated in the genre of travel literature. In fact travel theatre is synonymous to travelling theatre troupes. In troupes there are people from different castes and communities. They live in as small society of unity in diversity. These troupes travel from one place to another performing different types of dramas, ballads, masquerades, folktales etc. It is unique in its kind and it is also a means for earning livelihood for the persons related to these troupes. Although, the history of travel theatre in India can be traced back to ancient times when troupes of some native and indigenous performers used to show their talents before kings and the ruling Travel Theatre: At a Glance 169 170 Manish Ranjan class. It not only sought for them bread and butter but at the same and was very popular among people of gangetic plains during the time they were recognized and felicitated as the groups of having sixties. Life and struggle of this mobile theatre man later acquired a distinctive craft and dexterity. Later they were seen only during shape of a novel masterpiece namedSutradhar by writer Sanjeev. various regional fairs and festivals. During fairs they presented their Later on theatrepersonSanjay Upadhyaya staged a biopic Videsia dramas which were blazed with the touch of local and native culture based on the uncertainties of the life of Bhikhari Thakur. These deriving their themes from the folklore, myths, legends and local moving troupes' performances were in great demand till the arrival of tales of chivalry and romance and celebrated deities. other means of entertainment particularly cinema. It was an era of beginning of Indian film industry that harmed these artists little by In Rajasthan Bhand, Khayal, Nahar Nritya, Hela Nritya etc. may be little. People shifted to this new technological breakthrough without considered as some of the examples of travel theatre (as the troupes thinking and giving even a very little space for these ancient used to move to perform from one place to another). They also used traditions. That was a very crucial phase of travel theatre for religious scriptures either in full (like Ramleela) or in parts (like survival. Bharat Milap , Lav-Kush story, Hidimba Vadh, Shiva Bhasmasur Sanwad ,Ravan Angad Sanwad etc). Many troupes which were also With the rise of Prithvi Theatre established by Prithviraj Kapoor a known as Leela Mandli of holy cities like Mathura ,Kashi ,Ayodhya ray of hope came which not only rejuvenated this ancient form of etc. were quite popular and crowd puller during some of the festivals theatre in a new shape but also carried it to a new horizon. He gave a like Holi ,Dusahara and Diwali .These mandalies were confined to new look to theatre. He was one of the doyens of contemporary plays based on the miraculous tales of Lord Ram and Krishna. The Indian theatre. It was an era of beginning of Indian film industry too. main purport of these presentations was the uplifment of moral Prithviraj Kapoor began his theatre company Prithvi Theatres at the values in society signifying that the goodness inevitably triumphs at height of his film career and ran it professionally for sixteen years the end. Apart from this ,Videsia and Nautanki (a folk dance drama ) (1944-1960) continuously. He began performing around the time of ,which are very popular mainly in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar till now independence. He contributed enormously to the growth and even after it is limited to important fairs only, may also be considered development of Indian Theatre with his travelling theatre company. as some sort of mobile theatre. Its mass popularity is evident from He toured remote corners of the country (Undivided India). He the fact that it also gets reflected in some of the noted works of performed nearly 2662 shows - with repertoire of eight productions. literature. In Hindi literature Teesari Kasam Urf Mare Gaye Gulfam By Phaniswar Nath Renu is one of them. This story provides a fine Prithvi Theatre mainly focused on challenges of contemporary example of love between nautanki heroine Heerabai and the bullock- society. That's why seven of its eight productions were original plays. These plays are about imminent partition, farmers' woes, Hindu- cart driver Heeraman. In the story Heerabai decides to continue her Muslim relations, the effect of money on society when it becomes journey with nautanki party for the sake of livelihood as she found sole objective of our lives etc. Plays like Deewar (1946), Pathan herself in the clutches of capitalist company manager. Looking to the (1947), Gaddar (1948) and Aahooti (1948) can be placed under one vagaries of life she unwillingly makes up her mind to leave her love umbrella of Hindu-Muslim relations. Gaddar is all about the to the corner of heart. Here Renu hints at the emerging trends of misfortune of Indian Muslims living in post partition era, where a capitalist society which consider love as nonproductive activity. group of people are forced (by people of right winged political Later the story was filmed by renowned director Basu Bhattacharya parties) to see them as traitors by. Paisa (1953) is all about who initiated a debate on literature and cinema (as it was appreciated commercialization of the times. Kisan (1956) highlights the aspect of by the critics but was not good at box office).Videsia is based on feudal hierarchy in villages even after the Independence. Here sorrow tale of a woman whose husband is gone far away to make meaning of literary text takes various shapes and meanings as it money. This was started by Bhikhari Thakur in late twentieth century keeps moving from one place to another. Here theatre Journey ends Travel Theatre: At a Glance 171 172 Manish Ranjan not with a destination but with destiny itself. It is a process of self world is trying to preserve and popularize their language and culture. discovery as somebody moves miles and miles and heads towards his But this does not indicate that they got the permission for cultural destination. Simultaneously since the entire human life has been a activism and to underestimate others' culture”. Lehkar's love for consistent journey right from birth till sinking into the womb of the theatre and popularity compelled many to form mobile theatre earth the human beings not only travel outside but they also travel companies. Today nearly thirty to forty mobile theatre companies within themselves for self revelation to come out from the dialectics with groups of around one hundred and fifty people keep running of the life. their business on mobility by touching more than seventy places of Assam. Some of them are Purva Jyoti Theatre, Sura Devi Theatre, Prithvi Theatres' plays were drafted so nicely that they touched the Assam Star Theatre, Indradhanu Theatre etc. Their productions cover hearts and minds of the audience. Crossing the barriers of language the theme right from Shakespeare (Othelo, Macbeth etc.) to and class Prithvi Theatre was a living example of the efficacy of contemporary media breaking news like death of Lady Diana. Their theatre in modern society. Life of Prithviraj Kapoor endeavors to tell popularity and success can be observed from the fact that in some the tale that brought this young pathan to the heart of the film cases Assamese film hero gets comparatively more money for acting industry in Bombay (now Mumbai) to become an actor – who then in these mobile theatre companies than a film. went on to become a leading contributor to theatre in India while at the height of his film career. Eighteen years after closure of Here we can also talk about street performers as they show their skill travelling theatre company Prithvi Theatres, an auditorium was built and art around the streets. Street performers take street as their stage. in memory of Prithviraj Kapoor –Prithvi Theatre in Mumbai. After They are now becoming enduring memory of life. Apart from that Year 2006 witnessed birth centenary of this man of burning monkey shows, juggler, magician, snake charmer and acrobats were passion for theatre a theatre festival 'Kala Desh ki Sewa Mein' was very common in the streets of India. They had been performing these organized by the motivation of Ms. Sanjna Kapoor, his grand- arts right from ancient times for money that makes them to survive. daughter, to make the historic year memorable one. They had been a part of cultural life of cities around the world for centuries. Now they are driven away in the name of security hazard. In Assam performing troupes are in the form of mobile theatre After 1991-Act (about use of wild animals for commercial activities company. Actually theatre-person Achyut Lahkar founded Mobile nd or keeping them as pets) new circumstances also forced them to Natraj Company( MNC ) on 2 Oct. 1963. He was determined to think about leaving their profession. But the fact is that they perform make theatre reachable to everyone in Assam. He, therefore, made art handed down to them through various generations. Now they are the use of new scientific instruments with orchestra and light not being recognized in India though they appear on stamps and technology to surprise the audience. Here text was presented with a tourism posters, textbooks and ancient texts refer to them. If not mixture of dance, music, acting and set design. HisMNC consists of helped tribes of street performers will be extinct in the next couple of a very large movable tent which can accommodate two stages to years. In a mad rush for modernization they are continuously forced make continuous cinematic effect on the audience. He also on the brink of oblivion. introduced the use of projection technique on stage and extended it to playing pre-shooted footage. All these effort madeMNC very Looking to the gradual extinction of these travel performers' art form popular in the entire state entertaining urban as well as rural people brings out a sort of surprise in the era of globalization which devours as it was continued to exist for four decades till illness of its mentor. the local and the indigenous for its growth. At the present much has During these yearsMNC preserved cultural heritage of Assam changed for us, and again, much has not. We are today well on the through its contents. Lehkar was very cautious about the cultural way to form a hugely consumerist society; at the same time, we still hegemony of the west as he said “We should preserve our cultural hold tightly to age-old systems like caste, creed, colour etc. We enjoy identity in spite of learning culture of the world. Every country of the the consumer goods that the 'first world' has been privy to before we Travel Theatre: At a Glance 173 Journal of Rajasthan Association for Studies in English10: 174-179 (2014) were, but we do little to protect our art form (mainly traditional). In these particular times with transition and contradiction travel theatre struggles to find its place and position. But efforts made by people like Prithviraj and Lehar make us hopeful about finding a respectful How Many ? space for different forms of travel theatre in coming years. Definitely Traumatic Memories and Fractured Present this will be helpful in making new dimensions for generation coming ahead as art and culture always bring liveliness to our faces. Kshamata Chaudhary

Works Cited Freedom, when it came, brought along with it pain and separation – Kala Desh Ki Sewa Mein. New Delhi : Prithivi Theatre Festival. 2006. Print the pain of division, of loss: of values and life, loss of brothers and Rang, Prasang. New Delhi : NSD. Jan. 2012. Print loss of dreams woven together. Freedom brought with it 'Partition'. Sanjeev.Suthradhar . New Delhi: Rajkamal, 2006. Print. Partition of 'mind, heart, soul and even land'. It became ingrained in the memories more concrete than any loss. Recollection of events of partition through literary representation showcase the tumultuous years in the history of the nation. They raise questions of culture, languages and roots. My title 'How Many?' unravel the trauma faced by millions on both side, the loss irreparable. In recent years, this event has been revisited by writers thus resurgence of these memories. Literature is a representation: - realistic or surrealistic – and violence disrupts this act of representation by rousing painful memories. Literature manages to talk about it, explore it and write about it. It brings out the difference between history and literature. Literature goes beyond the society but looks on individual lives and their effort to create meaning out of the meaninglessness of world around them. Literature more than being a means of reflecting on memory is also the amalgamation of memories of society and culture. This most lethal incident in the history of India left an indelible mark on the psyche of every Indian & particularly on those Indians who have been the victim of this most dreadful occurrence in history. Indian writers could not remain untouched from this shocking affair and used the medium of creative writing especially novels and stories to lay bare the brutality, inhumanity & genocide of worst type. Roland Barthes has observed that language is 'neither an instrument nor a vehicle: it is a structure….but the author is the only man to lose How Many? Traumatic Memories and Fractured Present 175 176 Kshamata Chaudhary his own structure and that of world in the structure of language.” ray of hope is shown by the depiction of humanity of Dalipjit which Barthes further says, “ the writer offers society what society does not ultimately prevails in the novel. always ask of him…the writer's function is to say at once and on Writers like Urvashi Butalia view 'Partition : the word itself is so every occasion what he thinks, and ..he thinks to justify himself inadequate, a simple division, a separation, but surely what happened through his writings…it alway seems to indicate a conflict between in 1947 was much more than that. And Nadia Ahmed also analyses thoughts of characters and inertia of society reluctant to consume a partition, “In response to this turbulent period body of fictional merchandise which no specific institution normalizes.” explorations has arisen attempting to define the inner turmoil and The foremost attempt in this direction was taken by Khushwant social complexes plaguing the subcontinent”. Singh in his novelTrain to Pakistan in which he depicted in detail It has been acknowledged that the experience of partition has been the trauma of the victims of partition. As he himself belongs to the again and again represented and integrated in fiction. Many literary community who were the victim of this inhumane fate, he could be texts deal with the inflow of refugees, migrations and counter- sensitive to the agony of those people who fell prey to this partition. migrations which still continues in the present. As rightly said by His whole novel is a narrative piece which lays abre each detail of Prof. Jasbir Jain in her inaugural keynote address 'Past is Present and human psyche at the time of partition. One could see the writer Present is drawn out of Past.' The writers use the memories of their witching from narrator to an observer. Not only he participated as a characters to bring the historical past of the partition and its villager in the events of Mano Majra, an imaginative peaceful abode aftermath of life and through these memories offering a different of communal harmony but he narrated the whole tragedy as a way of looking at history. detached observer also. Manohar Malgaonkar inA Bend in the Ganges portrays an altogether Kushwant Singh in his Introduction in 'Train to Pakistan' said ' I had different version of the story from a new perspective. He brings in lived through the civil strife that engulfed the whole of northern the limelight the conspiracy of the Britishers in inciting the religious India. When communal riots broke out in Lahore there was hardly a hostilities between Hindus & Muslims. His stress is on the core night when we were not woken up by the sounds of gunfire and mob policy of the English of Divide & Rule in fostering the colonial yelling. It was after the Partition of the country was over, after ten design & leading India to the bloodshed of partition. million people had been rendered homeless and one million slain, The Ashes and Petals by H. S. Gill also throws light on the that I felt I had to purge myself of the guilt I bore that I was not a aftermaths of partition which shook not only India but the whole part of freedom , by writing about it .' world. It vividly draws a picture of communal riots, the brutal The novelRape by Raj Gill holds political leadership responsible for murders, rapes & mad dance of violence around Punjab & Meerut. the overall drama of partition & its devastating effects. He does not The Shadow Lines by Amitav Ghosh focuses more on the limit himself only up to the political consequences but also repercussion of this fateful destiny of India ,its victims ,its ugliness demoralizing & inhuman impacts of this most virulent event. The & its brutality more than anything else. TheAzadi by Chaman Nahal novel aptly shows how life due to meaness reduces a man to animal. has been always cited for its realistic as well as comprehensive Here the rape of Leila, a muslim girl by the father of the lover portrayal of the tragedy of the partition. Chaman Nahal reminds us (Dalipjit) of the girl is an example of most monstrous & unethical that the Indian struggle for Independence was based on the consequence of displacement & bitterness caused by partition. But a hypothesis of one nation theory which had taken the ethnic, cultural How Many? Traumatic Memories and Fractured Present 177 178 Kshamata Chaudhary and religious oneness of the masses as granted. Thus Azadi is a pre and past partition time. Before the division people had hope, striking synthesis of history and narration. enthusiasm, unity and determination to achieve what they thought a nation of their own. While after the partition their hopes were Waiting for the Mahatma by R. K. Narayan dealt with a unique shattered when faced with the stark reality of discrimination. Pichwa aspect of the fall-out of the partition wherein it is stressed that and his group of wrestlers wanted a separate nation but later when making of a country is not as important as that of the making of reality stuck him he felt he had lost his identity and his roots and he humanity. While on 15th of August, 1947 the country was had to move out of Qdirpur. The change that Hussain depicts is not celebrating its tryst with destiny but on the other side a pall of gloom only the result of partition but also of the new social and political prevailed in the riot hit areas. scenario with which everyone faced. Another novel Attia Hosan'sSunlight on a Broken Column is a Another story of Kishan Chander'sPeshwar Express also marks the coalescence of history and autobiography. The history of the Indian unprecedented violence in the emergence of new nation and national struggle for independence and the subsequent partition of henceforth biding farewell to civilizing and moral forces. (The Story the country fraught with violence, besides providing the background is unfolded through a train the narrator). The narrator recollects these to the personal history of Laila the protagonist, underlines as well, memories and expresses to sense of complete bewilderment at the her even struggle for independence from the claustrophobic sequence of events leading to partition. conditions of a conservative Muslim Family. In the novel the turbulent drama of partition and its aftermath is observed and when Krishna Sobti, the well known writer once remarked that Partition the Hindus and the Muslims lived in harmony and used to share each was difficult to forget but dangerous to remember because she other's pain. herself was a partition refugee but as Urvashi Butalia points that it is essential to remember the partition because unlocking memory and Debjani Senguptas in 'An Afterword' to Mapmaking: Partition remembering is an essential part of beginning the process of Stories from the Two Bengals projected Partition is often seen in resolving perhaps even of forgetting. Urvashi Bulalia's The other metaphysical terms – the hurt is not on the body but in the mind the side of Silenceand Ritu Menon and Kamla Bhasin's Borders and soul. The stories deals with partition, memory and nostalgia: where Boundaries both these works deal primarily with the personal does one belong? The partition was an inexplicable phenomenon for experiences of those who survived the trauma of partition violence. the people of Bengal, neighbours against neighbours, after years of having living together in bonds of intimacy and affection. These Keki N Daruwalla'sIn a High Wind tried to break away from the narratives represent the past the events in history though the memory traditional partition narrative but at the end depicted there is murder of their characters. Some stories too portray the experiences of of near ones, abandoning of home and property, trauma, abduction of partition. women, arson and sudden help from the least expected quarter due to partition. Intizar Husain's StoryThe Unwritten Epic is about the impact the political decisions may have on individual lives changing the entire In another storyKitne Pakistan of Kamleshar deals with individuals course of their beings. The Story develop a relation between the those lives were wrecked and torn apart as Pakistan was formed. protagonist and society and narrate how the experience of Mangal and Salima two protagonists the love blossomed between annihilation, pain and suffering got embodied in memories, them and later died due to communal tension within the village. The narrations, dream and perception. The story draws attention to the story begins with Mangal's dialogue the narrators to Salima. “ I don't How Many? Traumatic Memories and Fractured Present 179 180 Kshamata Chaudhary understand why I keep thinking about Pak again and again-why it Ghosh, Amitav.The Shadow Lines . New Delhi: Penguin Books, 2009. Print troubled me so much? Having lost the home in 'Chinar the paradise, Nahal, Chaman,Azadi . New Delhi: Arnold Heinmann, 1976. Print Mangal's emotional turmoil resurfaces many questions of 'where should I go now?' where should I hide? There are Pak everywhere. O Hussain, Attia,The Sunlight on a Broken Column . New Delhi: Penguin God! You don't know how many Paks were created along with the Books, 2009. Print creation of that one Pakistan, in how many hearts, in how many Duggal, K.S.Twice Born Twice Dead . New Delhi: Advent Books Division, places.” 1980. Print There are many more writers who also presented partition in their Narayan, R. K.Waiting for the Mahatma . Chicago: University of Chicago, writings. Sometimes as backdrop or as oblique way: Malgaonkar, Press, 1981. Print Manohar.A Bend in the Ganges Shiv K. Kumar's A River with Three Bhalla, Alok.Stories about the Partition of India . New Delhi: Indus Banks,B. Rajan's The Dark Dancer, Gill H. S., The Ashes and Publication, 1994. Print Petals,Anita Desai' Clear light of Day, Salman Rushdie's Midnight Singh, Khushwant. “Compulsions to write”, Explorations in Modern Indo- Children,Gurucharan Das' A Fine Family, K.K. Abbas' The World is English Fiction, ed. R.K. Dhawan, New Delhi: Bahri, 1982. Print My Villageand Shashi Tharoor's The Great Indian Novel to name a few, who have fictionalized “the single most traumatic experience” in the history of India and the unprecedented violence it unleashed in an impartial balanced manner, yet some avoiding sentimentalism and maintaining cool, ironic distance. Each of the story or novel referred to above is an artistic reverberation of singular tragic experience of the Partition though there are important difference of emphasis and literary apperception. Partition is not a bygone event and representations of the past in literature certainly deserve more exploration 'as we remake it, the past remarks us.' Works Cited Singh, Khushwant.Train to Pakistan . New Delhi: Pamela Books, 1998. Print Gill, Raj.The Rape . New Delhi: A Sterling Paper Back, 1974. Print Malgaonkar, Manohar.A Bend in the Ganges. New Delhi: Viking Adult, 1965. Print Gill, H. S.The Ashes and Petals .New Delhi:Vikas,1978. Print 182 L. S. Rathore

Travellers never did lie And elevates that which is dreary history. Though fools at home condemn them. It creates beauty by rejecting & exalting reality; - William Shakespeare Reconciles jarring elements & restores normality. God helping me Sometimes old myths are busted, new ones created Though fair & foul the breeze Scientific temper is nurtured, carnival spirit celebrated. I will sail & sail till I find Why harp on Arrian, Pliny, Strabo & Megesthenes That land beyond the western seas! Who brought the alien world to its knees? - Christopher Columbus When the Bard-on-Avon draws on travel's account, His portrayals acquire a sheen & become a 'joy-fount'. A PAEAN TO TRAVEL LITERATURE His allusions to the New World & Orient's pearls DEDICATED TO M.S.Y. Lend colour to his scenes & a beauteous world unfurls. - L. S. Rathore Depictions of the nuptials of Adam & Eve, & Satan's throne Attest to Milton's debt to travellers of age bygone. I warmly welcome you all into this August hall The zeal with which readers lapped up 'In Xanadu' With open arms I do welcome one & all. justifies this paean & proves it to be really true. May these luminaries who shine in literary firmament Doesn't it fulfil literature's glorious aims Aid me in seeking blessings for this event's betterment. If it at once guides, inspires, delights & entertains? ***** The genre sticks to tradition & yet is on the move Do treat my poem as a welcome address As that fades away which sticks in a groove. Because of the slot I have been under duress. Who knows a better poet might into this hall rush May it make up for my shallow knowledge Compose a much nicer poem & about its beauties gush? And do justice to my low intellect & hoary age! I wish our views chimed & we professed that travelogue ***** Come what may, will always endure & be in vogue. That hunters & gatherers gave rise to travel- lore Could well be proved by proofs galore. (Welcome address by Shri L.S. Rathore, Head Dept. of English, What wondrous worlds it does lay bare & hold MLV Govt. College, Bhilwara in X Annual Conference of RASE in Caves of dazzling diamond & glittering gold. 2013 ) It charms more than fiction and calls us to venture And stirs us to delve into depths for treasure. It reaches where the sun-rays can't penetrate Whatever it touches with its spirit does saturate. This genre enriches others & follows Plato's philosophy, As it blends 'what is' with 'what should be'. Thereby it lends to things charm & glory 183 184 Our Contributors

● Mrs. Taw Azu, Asst. Prof: Govt. College: DHTE- Itanagar & U.G.C- Doctoral Scholar, Dept. of EFL, Tezpur University, Assam: OCUR ONTRIBUTORS [email protected] ● Dr. Manish Ranjan, Lecturer in Hindi, M.L.V. Govt. College, ● Prof. A K Singh, Director, Translation Studies, IGNOU, New Delhi Bhilwara (Raj.). [email protected] ● Sarita Chanwaria, Lecturer, Govt. College Ajmer, Rajasthan ● Pankaj Vyas, Assistant Prof., Maharaja Institute of Technology, Udaipur ● Mamta Chanwaria, Lecturer, M.L.V. Govt. P.G. College, Bhilwara ● Mehzbeen Sadriwala, Lecturer, Sharamjeevi College, J.R.N. ● Rukhsana Saifee, Assistant Professor, Chartered Institute of University, Udaipur Technology, ABUROAD-307026 ● Dr. Mukta Sharma, Prof., Dept. of English, J.R.N. Rajasthan ● Rajpal, Assistant Professor, RPS P.G. College, Balana (Mahendergarh) Vidyapeeth University, Udaipur ● Narsingh Jangra, Govt. (P. G.) College, Sec-14, Karnal, HARYANA. ● E-mail : [email protected] Dr. Rekha Tiwari, Lecturer (Dept. of English), Guru Nanak Girls P.G. College, Hiran Magri Sect- 4, Udaipur (Raj.) ● Dr. Manisha Sharma, Head, Deptt. of English, Govt. Bangur College, Pali ● H. S. Chandalia, Prof., Dept. of English, J.R.N. Rajasthan Vidyapeeth University, Udaipur ● Dr. Krati Sharma, Asst. Prof., Dept. of English, JECRC UDML College of Engg., Jaipur. E-mail : [email protected] ● Dr. Kshamata Chaudhary, HOD, Dept. of English, Vardhaman Mahaveer Open University, Kota ● Kiran Deshwal, Research Scholar, Deptt. of English, University of Rajasthan, Jaipur ● Divyeshkumar D. Bhatt., Assistant Professor, Mahadev Desai Gramseva Mahavidyalya, Gujarat Vidyapith, Sadra ● Mr. Jaivardhan Singh Rathore, Lecturer in French, Amity School of Languages, Amity University Rajasthan, Jaipur ● Shri L.S. Rathore, Head, Dept. of English, MLV Govt. College, Bhilwara ● Dr. Gautam Sharma, Head, Department of English, S.P.U. (P.G.) College, Falna ● Divyaprakash Sharma, Research Scholar, Raj. University, Jaipur ● Akhilesh Kumar, Govt. College, Ateli, Haryana ● Dr. Payod Joshi, Lecturer in Political Science, M.L.V. Government College, Bhilwara ● Shruti Jain, Research Scholar, Central University of Haryana, Mahendergarh, Haryana ● Dr. Shalini Misra, Teacher, Sainik School Ghorakhal, Nainital (U.K.) PIN 263156. Email : [email protected] ● Mr. Subhashis Banerjee, Asst. Prof: Govt. College: DHTE- Itanagar & U.G.C-Doctoral Scholar, Dept. of EFL, Tezpur University, Assam. [email protected]