travelogue

Journeying through the Indian Railways in Around India in 80 Trains (2012) by Monisha Rajesh and Chai, Chai: Travels in Places Where You Stop But Get Never Off (2009) by Bishwanath Ghosh

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Siddharth Dubey

Ph.D Research Scholar, CHRIST (Deemed to be University), Delhi NCR. ORCID id: 0000-0002-9438-787X. Email id: siddharthd888@gmail.com.

 Volume 12, Number 3, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n3.38

Abstract

An Indian train is a space that exemplifies a true sense of transient cultural pattern as it travels through different states of India constantly assimilating people of diverse cultures. In this liminal space, a passenger travels from known to unknown in terms of geography, culture, language, cuisine, sartorial configuration and psychological makeup. Indian Railways offers an insightful analysis of cohabitation – the conflict and the coexistence of people amidst cultural differences.An Indian train is an exemplar of an accurate secular structure, blurring the lines of discrepancies based on religion, caste, gender, sex and sexuality. Prejudices that are evident in spaces relatively marked by certain spatial permanence dilute in a train. A provisional spatial arrangement of a train therefore questions the idea of tolerance and intolerance compared to that of permanent arrangement. As the Indian train incorporates people of all ages and territories, the train is a specimen of the concept of Bakhtinian polyphony, wherein the dialogues occurring between passengers represent varied consciousness. Thus, a train travelogue encompasses unmerged voices, each carrying a unique conscious design. The people travelling in an Indian train are separated on one single ground: economy. Therefore, economic factor becomes an overarching pattern of base to assign a certain culture in a superstructure to each class and each offers a unique perspective to the travelogue. This paper will analyze the trope of the train in two Indian travelogues based on culture, Marxist economic structure, Bakhtinian concept of polyphony, secularism and the idea of tolerance.

Keywords: Indian trains, travelogue, liminality, polyphony, secularism

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A Critical Review of the First Travelogue written in an Indian language on Assam Udaseen Satyashrabar Asam Bhraman by Ramkumar Bidyaratna

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Bibha Devi

Assistant Professor, Department of English, Indreswar Sarma Academy Degree College, JibanPhukan Nagar, Dibrugarh, Assam. ORCID: 0000-0003-0591-8737. Email: bibhadevi@gmail.com

 Volume 12, Number 3, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n3.17

Abstract

Travel narratives usually provide ethnographic information about a place and its inhabitants. The travelogue written in 1881 by Ramkumar Bidyaratna gives an excellent ethnographic account of contemporary Assam and Assamese society of the nineteenth century. The travelogue, which was originally written in Bengali, was translated into Assamese by Munin Sarma in 2014.  The book is significant for its prudent comments on various socio-cultural aspects of the Assamese society like – condition of Assamese women, widow remarriage, commerce, religion, etc. As stated in the translated version, Bidyaratna’s travelogue was probably the first travelogue on Assam written in an Indian language. There was an aim behind Bidyaratna’s travel to Assam. From his experiences from his travel to places outside Bengal he had developed a belief that unless one gets associated with another culture, it is natural to have a wrong notion about that culture. His aim was to eradicate misunderstandings between the Assamese and the Bengalis. In this present study, the Assamese version of the travelogue has been used to explore and interpret the socio-cultural milieu of Assam as represented in the narrative. This paper critically reviews the book, firstly, to explore the way ethnographic  information about Assam has been represented in it; and, secondly, to generate an understanding of the progressive thinking of the writer as evident from it.

Keywords: Travelogue, ethnography, Assam, culture, Assamese

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What is Performance Studies?

Richard Schechner Tisch School of the Arts, New York University  Download PDF Version Because performance studies is so broad-ranging and

Translating the Traveled Culture: an Analysis of Tamarind City: Where Modern India Began by Bishwanath Ghosh

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Arpana Venu

Department of English, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Amrita University, Coimbatore. Email: venu.arpana@gmail.com.

 Volume 10, Number 1, 2018 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v10n1.08

Received September 27, 2017; Revised December 11, 2017; Accepted December 30, 2017; Published February 04, 2018.

Abstract

Travel writing, often reflects the culture of the traveled land through the cultural lens of the traveler. This article attempts to analyze how cultural translation operates in a travelogue. The analysis is based on Bishwanth Ghosh’s Tamarind City: Where Modern India Began, an account of his experience as an outsider in the city of Madras. One of the primary reasons for selecting this particular text is that not many authors have extensively written about Madras (Chennai), one of the oldest cities of India. The travelogue unlike others that are mostly records of passing travels is different in a way that it documents the transformation of a city on account of the author’s stay there for almost a decade. The well acclaimed travel critic Mary Campell has elaborated on the major concerns of the traveler, while encountering a foreign culture.  . It therefore represents not only the changing times, but also the intra-cultural transformations along with the socio-political and demographic changes, that happened in a city with a long history.

Keywords: Cultural translation, travelogue, Madras city.

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