The Politics of Travel: The Travel Memoirs of Mirza Sheikh I’tesamuddin and Sake Dean Mahomed (original) (raw)
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The article explores the accounts of European travellers of sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in the context of images and representations of India. During these two centuries, about hundred travellers came to India from Europe and wrote accounts of their experiences. As travel writing had developed into a very popular genre in the early modern Europe, some of these accounts were published many times, translated into important European languages and read extensively. Some of them were also included in the popular anthologies and collections of travel writings. These travel accounts, therefore, became the first means to represent the 'reality' of India. This study is directly concerned with these early European representations and narrative constructions and problematizes them in relation to the 'reality' of India. KEY WORDS Travel Writing, Colonial India, European Imperialism, Early Modern Period, Orientalism
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GEMA Online® Journal of Language Studies
Travel writings by Western visitors of the Orient have often been rebuffed for disseminating a stereotypical discourse on the people and the culture of the East. The rationale for the collective dismissal of such narratives, however, is built upon a limited canon whose myopic perspective creates a monolithic Orient. It is argued that since this dominant discourse leaves nearly no room for non-conformism, it has conveniently overlooked a large body of travel writings of western writers that adopt a non-Orientalist approach to appreciate cultural differences. To pursue this argument, the present study aims to explore Jürgen Wasim Frembgen's At the Shrine of the Red Sufi: Five Days & Nights on Pilgrimage in Pakistan (2011) to examine how the autobiographical narrator's travel accounts present an alternative narrative about the East that subverts prevailing discourses on travelogues as apparatuses to reinforce colonial/Western norms. To achieve this goal, the study benefits from Debbie Lisle's (2006) theories on the cosmopolitan vision of a travel writer as well as Edward Said's (1978) theory of Orientalism. Frembgen's cosmopolitan vision throughout the narrative neutralizes negative perceptions about Muslim communities in Pakistan as uncultivated and declining by offering a counter view of the country that underscores its vibrant and positively transformative qualities. The celebration of Eastern culture and religion in Frembgen's travel writing indicates the need for the re-examination of the Orientalist thought that has, wittingly or unwittingly, dismissed a significant segment of western works about the east in order to legitimize its theoretical and hypothetical cases.
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This article focuses on vernacular travel writings on America and Europe by Swami Satyadev ‘Parivrajak’ (1879–1961), one of the first persons to systematically write travelogues in Hindi. I argue that Parivrajak’s travel literature was part of a colonised nation’s attempt to reclaim a space of freedom, forged through the carving of ‘perfect masculine bodies’, which embodied his ideals of beauty and pleasure. It was a performative, political act that inscribed gendered landscapes with a dialogue between East and West, slavery and freedom. The Hindu male’s subaltern masculinity had to be overcome through diverse means, all of which metaphorically interacted to shape Parivrajak’s writings.
International journal of english, literature and social science, 2022
Travel writing is a literary genre that remain concerned with travelling accounts or records of a person. Such accounts enable one to know about different cities and countries and become familiar with varied cultures, behavioral patterns and their living conditions. Travel writings are being produced since time immemorial. India is a land of diverse cultures, languages, and food habits that remained a favourite destination among travel enthusiasts living both India and abroad. Many European, Chinese and Arab Travel writers like Jean Baptiste Tavernier, Ibn-e-Battuta and Hiuen Tsang have written at length about their experiences of travelling to India. They all have written works on India, its culture and the people that are living there. Their accounts are not reliable from the information point of view because they are based on whatever these travellers have seen or witnessed around them. They do not provide an actual image of India but rather presented an unrealistic portrayal of India in their writings. They have not focused on the adversities and social evils that were prevalent at that time. Earlier, travel writings remain a product of colonial enterprise. That is why there is a need for India travel writers to discuss their opinions regarding the impression of India and the people at large. Through this paper, I will try to show the history of Indian travel writings and works that are being done under this genre until now. At the same time, I will also discuss about the recent changes that are happening in this genre.