People of different cultures worked, traded and traveled throughout the Empire, contributing to its power and dynamics. Some Europeans who began to criss-cross the roads with Mughals recorded themselves in forms of diaries or letters about the people and the lands they encountered on their journey, which are well preserved today. Europeans such as Sebastien Manrique, Antonio Monserrate, Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, and William Hawkins recorded their experiences and observations from fascinating and informative visions travel and life in india during this period and provide invaluable contribution to our understanding of life at the time.
Sebastien Manrique, a priest who went on a journey to India for missionary work, writes his experiences to educate his audience as well as entertain the audience. While writing this well-constructed article, Manrique keeps his audience in mind by providing exceptionally detailed experiences that he had on his journey. He is able to portray his journey as if the reader were truly there alongside him. The reader is able to imagine the drastic situations he went through on his journey due to the “monsoon floods, voracious mosquitos, appetizing peacocks, violent fever and affronted villagers – as well as threatening Mughal officials.” He is also well aware of what he must do in order to continue his narrative without boring his audience, “give a detailed description of their appearance and control, as well as of the arrangements made in them.”
Overall The Absolutely true diary of a part Time indian strongly reinforces the concept of survival through many techniques and quotes. The many situations that the narrator finds himself in have an enormous effect
Notably, McCurry’s neat and predictable photographs of India, taken over the course of 40 years, are more popular than Singh’s more realistic, chaotic and exciting images. Cole argues that this popularity is because of McCurry’s portrayal of places and people due to orientalism, based on conventional preconceptions of historical India. They are our colorful fantasies of old India realized on glossy
In Documents 2 and 4, traveling to unfamiliar areas shows its importance. Although Ibn Battuta and Marco Polo were not traveling for the same
The film “The Mission” (1986) was written by Robert Bolt and directed by Roland Joffe. It explores the various relationships distinguished between Spanish Jesuits and Indian (Guarani) civilization situated along the borders of Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil around 1750. Although, as stated in the beginning of the movie that “The Mission” is “based on true historical events”, Bolt and Joffe distort the portrayal of the Guarani and Jesuit relationships. This essay will examine the distortions of the Guarani tribe and the inaccurate “historical” events that took place within the movie.
As a first generation Indian-American, I am no stranger to being a part of a distinct community while observing two unique cultures. Traveling to India exposed me to a dynamic population with rich diversity comprising of numerous languages and differing religions. Though these individuals may have had differing customs from their neighbors, there were similar ambitions to conquer grinding poverty. This poverty can be clearly noticed by seeing citizens sleeping on floors of a railway station, or the lack of air conditioning in searing hot weather. The frailty and mortality of the human condition was starkly visible in India. As a fellow human, I was humbled not only by the lack of privilege and opportunity of many citizens, but also by their
The pilgrimage is indeed an amazing phenomenon, which brings people together at a common goal, which is believed to be the essence or starting point of life and the ‘door’ to the afterlife. As we will discover, pilgrimages require great sacrifice, both financially and physically. Pilgrimages may give the impression of an act that is traditional and not ‘fit’ for our modern world. However, one who has not walked the pilgrimage may never see the insight that the pilgrims themselves see. One fact is certain and striking. The numbers of pilgrims at the world’s major shrines are still increasing.
Nowadays the wide array of transportation means and infrastructures at our disposal has made it relatively easy for us to travel from one country to another; even when those countries are thousands of miles away from each other. However, during the 13th and 14th centuries, travelling was not that easy. Yet, two men, the Italian tradesman Marco Polo and the Moroccan Jurist Ibn Battuta became famous for having managed to perform extremely long distance journeys away from their home country. At the end of their long travels, both men shared their experiences with the world via the books, The Travels of Marco Polo and The Travels of Ibn Battuta. An analysis of those two texts reveals two things. On one hand, Marco Polo remained a cultural
The reader gets a rare and exotic understanding of a totally foreign and ancient culture experiencing the growing pains of colonial expansion during the British domination
Endo’s Deep River opens up an unsettling encounter with the spiritual vision of India described through the experience of five Japanese travelers from vastly different backgrounds each of whom faces a troubling personal crisis. By exploring the depth of the human need to understand ourselves and our purpose in life, Endo illuminates his appreciation of the workings of grace from a God present in the sufferings of humanity. Endo delves deep into the human condition through his characters that reflect the complex individuals and personalities we are.
In looking at the Feast of the Dead as a metaphor for broader Indian-European relations, Seeman reveals that mortuary rituals served as a vein in
Kim gives a vivid picture of the complexities in India under British rule. It shows the life of the bazaar mystics, of the natives, of the British military. There is a great deal of action and movement, for Kipling's vast canvas painted in full detail. The dialogue in the novel makes use of Indian phrases translated by the author, they give the flavor of native speech in India. They are also touches of the native behavior and shrewdness.
The plot in the short story “Hindus” demonstrates how a certain sequence of events can help people better understand themselves. Leela meets many different and unique people on her journey throughout
Though not a permanent resident of Kinsay, it is allegedly believed that merchant and traveller Marco Polo spent several years in the service of the world’s largest empire. In an effort to collect information, Polo spoke of stories regarding his journey which were later documented by a fellow inmate of his at the time. Moreover, what Polo had discovered enabled the expansion of European society to take shape thus contributing to early modern global interactions and trade.
They tell a kind of Indian folklore which is not of India, but constructed by Kipling himself. This is not to suggest that what The Jungle Book depicts is a work of complete imagination; ‘essentially an idea’ with no corresponding reality, but rather that there are ‘regular constellations of ideas which become the pre-eminent thing about the Orient’. The Orient is conceptualised by strict and rigid lines of thinking which can never do justice to the ‘lives, histories and customs’ of the ‘cultures and nations whose location is in the East’. It is the pre-supposed authority of what ‘is said about them (the Orient) in the West’ which establishes the relationship between the Occident and the Orient as one of ‘power, of domination, of varying degrees of cultural hegemony.’5
There are many clues into how Indian society runs in this story. These cultural clues come from this story and they come from various aspects. There are cultural clues from Hinduism mythology and from first-hand accounts of Ms. Kralijevic’s journey to the Taj Mahal. The cultural context of India and its citizens that stems from Hindu mythology stem from how monkeys are perceived. ‘The monkey army commander