Book Review by S.Mridha

Somjyoti Mridha reviews Charanik: The Walker by Mohanlal Gangopadhyay, Translated by Jayanta Sengupta.

Charanik, originally published in Bengali in 1942 narrates a walking tour undertaken by the author Mohanlal Gangopadhyay (1909-1969) with his Czechoslovakian friend Mirek during the late 1930s just before the onset of hostilities that culminated in the Second World War. The Bengali title means “Wanderer”. The English translation is published with a subtitle, “The Walker”. This travel classic has been translated into English by Jayanta Sengupta giving an afterlife to the book as well as making it accessible to a much wider readership beyond the Banglasphere. His translation from the original Bengali was published in 2021. His act of translation is an intimate and durable literary experience. Having read Charanik during his formative adolescent years, Sengupta undertook a similar journey on the same route and then proceeded to translate the book into English.

                    Charanik is part of the tradition of travel literature that was popular during the mid-twentieth century. Rahul Sankrityayan’s Ghumakkad Shastra (1948) being another famous specimen of the genre. In curious ways, Charanik may be regarded as a precursor of the travelogues written by Nirmal Verma, an eminent Hindi litterateur, about Czechoslovakia and other central European nations during his decade-long stint at the Oriental Institute in Prague.

Travelling is generally considered a leisure and fun activity yet walking tours are strenuous and physically taxing. Walking is probably the most primitive mode of travelling before the discovery of wheels and other modern modes of transport. In spite of scientific advancement and modern modes of travel, walking continues to be a very effective mode of travel. Throughout the world walking is considered as the sacred mode of travelling to pilgrimages. In contemporary times, walking has taken centre stage as the preferred mode of travel due to concerns about carbon footprints. Charanik elevates walking as a transcendental experience connecting nature with human existence. Gangopadhyay writes,

The joy of walking was fully engrossing. The trees, the leaves, the fruits, the flowers, the soil, the water, the air, the sunlight, the shadows—these were now my very own friends. They and I were part of a huge family. But strangely enough, till a few days ago, I didn’t know them at all, they were nowhere as close to me as they had become!(Gangopadhyay 107)

             Gangopadhyay was a student at the London School of Economics when he planned to undertake a walking tour traversing the mountains, forests and scenic hamlets of Czechoslovakian countryside. Though he had the opportunity to visit European metropolises like Rome, Vienna, Munich and Berlin, he preferred to acquaint himself with the bucolic beauty of the Czechoslovakian mountains and caves. Critics commonly allege that Gangopadhyay’s walking tour happened during politically turbulent times yet he chose to be silent about them.  This review seeks to challenge that view. Gangopadhyay, a student of economics was not oblivious to the political economy of colonialism where the colonized nations were exploited for the economic and political benefit of the colonizing nation. The glitz and glamour of the European capitals were sustained by the exploitative economy of colonization. His rejection of the normatively modern as well as modernizing European nations may have been both political as well as personal. His preference for a quieter vacation in a non-colonizing European nation upholds his latent anti-colonial politics. The all-pervasive belligerence in Europe right before the Second World War may also have influenced his choice. It is all the more significant that the walking tour was undertaken during the heyday of anti-colonial nationalist struggle in the Indian sub-continent. Gangopadhyay, hailing from an illustrious Kolkata family was no stranger to anti-colonial struggle in India. The travelogue is only deceptively non-political since the silence about the obvious political context upholds the author’s latent political stand.   

Gangopadhyay describes the flora and fauna as well as rural lifestyle of Czechoslovakian countryside in minute detail. He willingly participates in the communal activities of the rural folks he encounters during his journey. His excitement at the prospect of finding Strawberries and Bilberries on the banks of mountainous streams is noteworthy. There is a characteristic romantic strain in his description of nature and bucolic rural existence.  One of the key features that he stresses upon is the preponderance of physical labour essential for the sustenance of pre-modern agrarian activities in Czechoslovakia. There are repeated references to arduous physical labour that accompanies trekking in a mountainous region. Travelogues written by Indians during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century mostly focus on European modernity/urbanity as well as cultural accomplishments. There are occasional references to urban squalor and poverty. Charanik is quite unique since it focuses on rural life of poverty and hardship along with the bounty of nature. The travelogue directs a reverse colonial gaze where the myth of so-called modern Europe is challenged thereby creating a multiplicity of perspectives about representing Europe. This reverse colonial gaze is infinitely complicated by the privileged class position of the author and his romantic association with the central European peasantry and landscape.

                 The events in the travelogue happened in 1937 while the author recounts them in 1942. There is a characteristic romantic strain about recounting an experience gained amid nature “recollected in tranquility”. This period is coeval with the massive cartographic reorganization of Europe as well as the Indian sub-continent. Shifting borders and boundaries remains a crucial subtext throughout the narrative. The author refers to the invasion of Czechoslovakia by Nazi Germany once though he abstains from making a political statement. At a poignant moment in the narrative, when the author and his friend climb up the Hoverla peak, the highest mountain in the Carpathian range, they come across the international boundary between Czechoslovakia, Poland and Rumania. It is also interesting to note that the Hoverla peak is now a part of Ukraine after the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia. The author’s intention was most probably to point out the continuum in nature and the little regard it has for artificially created political boundaries. In fact, the narrative repeatedly stresses upon the flow of agrarian life irrespective of political turbulence.         

                 Gangopadhyay is conscious of his Bengali origins in the course of the narrative.  He reveals that he read a Bengali newspaper regularly while trekking the mountains of central Europe at a critical juncture during his walking expedition. He refers to his Bengali bhadralok origins a couple of times in the course of the travelogue in order to justify his inability to carry heavy loads or tackle narrow forest paths. He relegates his inability to perform basic duties like cleaning socks on his privileged class/caste position and Bengali genteel origins. He somehow dissociates Bengali lifestyle with hard physical labour which in a way exposes his disconnect with common folks in Bengal engaged in agrarian and other activities. Though identity does not feature as a theme in the narrative yet the author is curiously aware of the racial alterity that he represents to Europeans in the course of his trekking adventure.   

Somjyoti Mridha teaches at the Department of English, North-Eastern Hill University (NEHU), Shillong, Meghalaya. His areas of interest are Post-Colonial Studies, Ideas of Nation and Nationalism, Indian English Literature, and Literatures of Kashmir Conflict. His doctoral research was on literary and cinematic representation of Kashmir Conflict.