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The Westward Traveller THERE is hardly any historical travelogue written by an Indian about some foreign land. However, the late 19th century and the early 20th century witnessed an explosion of travel literature from eastern India, particularly Bengal. The spread of English education provided the narrative for such travelogues. The Bengali bhadrlok learnt to see Europe through English education that in many ways emancipated them from their traditional frameworks. Durgabati Ghose’s The Westward Traveller belongs to the genre of such literature.
As Ghose moves into previously unknown areas, her consciousness also expands. In this sense the book is a record of her unfolding consciousness in relation to her changing experiences due to her travels. Her discovery or encounter of Europe gives a new sense not only to Europe but also to her home. The first half of the travelogue tells us about Ghose’s sea sickness, monotony of travel, observation of different co-passengers, etc. She visits Aden, Port Said, the Suez Canal, the Red Sea, Italy, France, Switzerland, Austria, and finally Britain. There is a lot of touristy kind of information. Though it does not completely read like a travel guide, her narration is full of conversations with ordinary people. The travelogue also offers nuggets of history. The author describes in detail the air-raid evacuation plasticised during Mussolini’s time and a very personal and humorous interaction with the world-renowned psychologist Professor Sigmund Freud. Such incidents provide fodder for historians of subaltern studies. Besides, the book is a key to enter the mental universe of a young middle-class Bengali housewife of the 1930s. On seeing six Bengali youths in a dance club, the author feels sad for their parents who send them abroad for higher studies. She describes belly dancers as "shameless since birth". The reader encounters Ghose’s dejection from the glamour of Western cities, her rejection of their lifestyles and her home sickness in her rather short travel. Wherever she goes, she finds herself a misfit in that society. All this also brings home the fact that more than anything, travelling is an art, which demands first and foremost an open mind and an idea of relativity of cultures, that every culture has its own logic and ethics and that there are no universal ethics and morals applicable equally to all cultures. The sheer fact that the
book was written in 1932, moreover by an Indian woman travelling first
time outside India, trying to make sense of the modern Western world
that till now she has known only as the dominant colonial power, makes
it an important social document that would be of interest not only to
historians and feminist writers but also to all those who share a
passion and romance for bygone days and times.
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Unlike
their male counterparts, middle-class Bengali women hardly travelled
to the West alone. Most of them accompanied their male family members,
usually their husbands, fathers or sons, and hence the kind of
metaphysical roads they travelled were also qualitatively different.
In this respect, The book offers a significant contribution to the
history of women’s travel narratives from colonial Bengal. The
reader can sense the conventionality, conservatism, and domesticity of
a middle-class Bengali household female.