Nabaneeta Dev Sen’s travelogue written and published first in Bangla in 1977 titled Karuna Tomar Kon Patha Diye fills the gap in an important sub genre of travel literature in that it narrates a road story of a woman. The work was first published in the special edition of Desh, a Bengali periodical and later as a book once it already had gained popularity through the periodical.
Travel itself is an important facet in a human being’s realization of himself or herself. Travel literature for that matter has gained importance as an autobiographical-literary recounting of a person’s conscious perigri-nations through which (s)he is supposed to have attained a greater understanding of the world as well as himself or herself. Given the patriarchal regulations on a woman’s mobility, a journey undertaken by a woman is in itself an act of defiance, more so, if she chooses to narrate it. Nabaneeta Dev Sen’s The Holy Trail deals with her journey on a pilgrimage to the Maha Kumbh at the Triveni Sangam near Allahabad on the special occasion of the Mouni Amavashya (no moon night), a rare astrological assemblage in the Hindu almanac.