India and the Traveller: Aspects of Travelling Identity, a collection
of essays on travel writings related to India, focuses on the evolving
persona of travelers to India as well as Indians journeying to other
lands or within India.
It examines India as a space, reflected on and interrogated by others,
as also people associated intrinsically with this space, who move in and
out of it.- The essays focus on the self-fashioning of the traveller -
Buddhist pilgrims of Asia, European visitors to the Mughal court, the
British colonizer, the Indian anthropologist, historian or whimsical
civil servant, the wanderer seeking spiritual insight in nature, and the
woman traveller with her distinct perceptions and sensitivities.
Engaging with issues related to identity, this book explores the need
for cultural accommodation by African and European travellers, the
discovery of affinity by Asian travellers, the instability of
postcolonial selves and travel as a means of negotiating complex
problems of fashioning personae in literary works.