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A World Elsewhere, a self-published novel by Shanta Acharya, is about a new world, a search for a state of being, a quest for meaning and for home—wherever that may be. Set in Orissa, India in the turmoil of the post-Independence years, in the clash of old and new world views, Anglophilia and Anglophobia, we are introduced to a hardworking, academic Hindu family who believes in the power of education, who struggles to maintain stability both within the family as well as in society, who understands that progress is needed for growth yet is bound by the demands of a closed society, especially when it comes to women.

It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end. (Ernest Hemingway)The opening sentence of Prabhu Ghate’s By Thumb, Hoof and Wheel: Travels in the Global South sets the tone for what the traveller-reader should expect from the book: ‘Apart from trying to communicate the sheer joy of travel, and its huge educational possibilities, and weaving a bit of contemporary history into the story, I hope to persuade readers in this book that one does not have to be particularly rich to travel, or young for that matter (just young at heart, reasonably fit, empathetic, and curious.)’ The book catches the fervour of our times, when interest in travel and travel writings is growing among people, especially catching on with Indians.

This nosegay of memories, personal and collective, has many a bright offering which takes the reader by the hand through the lesser-known and familiar byways of the Doon valley. Every generation treasures memories of days gone by: a slower paced world, a world warmed by the sandpapering of time. Nothing can ever remain the same again. Memories of Another Day brings to life the old and the familiar to those of us who lived in this once green valley. Vanished landmarks like Kwality restaurant, Landour Clock Tower and others are symbols of the loss.

The painting of tall, grim-looking Afghans on the cover of In A Land Far From Home makes for possibly one of the most deceptive book covers. You’d believe that here is a heavy, boring, fact-addled tome on Afghan history. Nothing could be further from the truth. Syed Mujtaba Ali’s book, a travelogue that should be treated as a slice of history, is possibly one of the most delightful books ever written, and equally delightfully translated by Nazes Afroz from the Bengali original, Deshe Bideshe.

Travelogues from the past are more than mere journeys over a land mass or stretch of sea. They speak to us of life-styles, of economic strengths and weaknesses, of politics and race and of nationhood and family relations—all interlinked and woven together in the writer’s imagination. The translator and editor of both the volumes which have appeared in quick succession, Somdatta Mandal, herself a tireless traveller and an equally indefatigable translator, is determined to bring the invisible past before us. A few years ago she had brought to the public another Bengali woman’s travelogue Attiya’s Journey and in the years in between she has edited two volumes of critical essays on travelogues from Indian languages.

Gora in Bengali is considered to be the best novel by Rabindranath Tagore for its epic range. Though written between 1907 and 1909 (when the author was in his forties), the action of the text is clearly set at least thirty years earlier, in the early 1880s and takes into account events that happened even earlier. If one takes into consideration the moment of Gora’s birth, then the action of the narrative should be said to begin from the year 1857. The novel is considered central to the nation question because it captures the Indian nationalist upsurge of the late nineteenth-early twentieth century in all its tragic complexity. Gora is produced in an awareness of Lord Curzon’s proposed partition of Bengal and the consequent crystallization of the Bengal-Indian identity.