Traveling Leaves You Speechless, then Turns You into a Storyteller

Nothing about wandering is left to wonder. But wandering with a purpose is all about wondering, because with a purpose you are travelling. The beauty in travelling lies in the things you witness and the things you learn and then based on those experiences, you become a storyteller. Now, storytelling determines the type of a person you are, because storytelling highly relies on two things: your interest and were you are travelling at. Two such individuals, renowned for their contributions of their time: David Livingstone and Rabindranath Tagore in their travel accounts, display their storytelling skills which determine who they were.

If taken into account, neither Livingstone nor Tagore had anything in common. One was a Scottish Christian Congregationalist, pioneer medical missionary with the London Missionary Society, an explorer in Africa, and one of the most popular British heroes of the late 19th-century Victorian era, while the other was a Bengali literary genius, a humanitarian and a social activist. But most importantly, they belonged to different times. Then what can possibly draw similarity between these two travellers? It is Africa, although Tagore never visited the continent, his concerns in Ode to Africa brings out the imageries mentioned in Livingstone’s account on his voyage to Zambezi. The similarity hence lies in the art of storytelling. In Livingstone’s Expedition to the Zambesi and its Tributaries and the discovery of Lakes Shirwa and Nyassa 1858–1864 one of the narratives gives an account of a rebel for slave trading.

Dr. Livingstone, landing to salute some of his old friends among the latter, found himself in the sickening smell, and among the mutilated bodies of the slain; he was requested to take the Governor, who was very ill of fever, across to Shupanga, and just as he gave his assent, the rebels renewed the fight, and the balls began to whistle about in all directions. After trying in vain to get someone to assist the Governor down to the steamer, and unwilling to leave him in such danger, as the officer sent to bring our Kroomen did not appear, he went into the hut, and dragged along his Excellency to the ship. He was a very tall man, and as he swayed hither and thither from weakness, weighing down Dr. Livingstone, it must have appeared like one drunken man helping another. Some of the Portuguese white soldiers stood fighting with great bravery against the enemy in front, while a few were coolly shooting at their own slaves for fleeing into the river behind. The rebels soon retired, and the Portuguese escaped to a sandbank in the Zambesi, and thence to an island opposite Shupanga, where they lay for some weeks, looking at the rebels on the mainland opposite. This state of inactivity on the part of the Portuguese could not well be helped, as they had expended all their ammunition.

In Tagore’s Ode to Africa, he writes about the colonizers and shackled slave trade.

The ruthless arms of the primordial oceans Snatched you, Africa, from the breast of the primal Earth Binding you in the impossible weave of the wakeful forest Deep within the sanctum of misery light. There, surrounded by impenetrable privacy and leisure You embarked upon your quest To unravel the secrets of the uncharted-- learning how to read the incomprehensible signs Of the seas, the land and the skies Nature's magical alchemy, unseen, unheard Awakened mantras within your subconscious. Emboldened, you mocked the Terrible In the guise of the unpleasant It was but your attempt at defying fretful apprehension Much as creatures amplify their visage In the spellbinding greatness of the monstrous The cataclysmic sounds of Tandava. Alas, 0 Veiled One Underneath the obscurity of your dark facade lay unknown your human identity Degraded by the collective gaze of derision. And then they arrived, manacles in hand Claws sharper by far than any on your wolves; They arrived, human rustlers and traffickers all By vanity and arrogance blind, sightless by far Than your darkest, sunless forests. Than your darkest, sunless forests. Civilization's barbaric greed Revealed in stark nakedness Its shameless, remorseless inhumanity. Your wordless bemoaning and tears Mingled with the fetid vapors of the jungle; Soaked in your tears and your blood The dirt transmogrified into a noxious swamp. The mud-laden tracks of demonic cleats left behind for all eternity, the markers of your humiliation Upon the pages of your history.

The poem is organized to reflect the advancement of Africa, with three stanzas individually managing Africa's creation, colonization and post-expansionism. This sets up the system for the differentiating of the three time frames, which uncover the impression of the bad faith of Western colonialism. For Tagore, Western colonialism in Africa has ruined the nation's normal movement towards civilisation. This is underscored through his plentiful utilization of humanoid attribution which offers a human measurement to Africa. The work of sentiment in Africa likewise passes on Tagore's origination of Western expansionism as driven by a uninformed feeling of scorn that has mercilessly victimized the landmass of its purity. For Livingstone, carrying out a colonizers task, saw this first hand while Tagore, even though did not travel in Africa physically, wrote about the place ( although not about a region precisely) hearing perhaps someone else’s stories, or personal accounts or a travel journal.

But how does one’s account reveal beyond day to day travel activities? It is their approaches or rather narratives that decide. For instance, in Tagore’s excerpts from The Letters and Diaries of Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) unlike other great voyagers/ explorers or travellers, he does not give details on his surroundings, rather he writes a metaphysical understanding of his surroundings, which relays his own reflection and gaze...The isle where our ship is anchored now is known as Biliton. Population is sparse. There are tin quarries manned by their managers and labourers. It is a wonder how they are milking the entire earth. Once upon a time these people sailed off in swarms into the unknown seas. They had went round the earth to be familiar with it, to measure it. That history of familiarization is long and hazardous. I ponder, when they had first lowered their sail here at these coasts, far away from their homes, how full were those days of apprehension and expectation as well. The greenery, animals, humans here were all strange to them. But to-day, everything is known and vanquished! They have defeated us, why, I ponder.

The main reason is, we are static they are dynamic. So they could go round easily and that is why they have known and their appetite for knowledge has been further whetted. That appetite is feeble among us because of our stagnation. Even our knowledge about our neighbors is vague neither we have urge to know them better. Because, our home encloses us too much. Those, whose vigour for knowledge is low, so is that for their survival. With the same vitality that enabled them to earn all rights over Java, is the dedication of their archeologists to explore this island. Yet, like this island, its archeology too was totally alien to them. We are indifferent about knowledge of our neighborhood while their urge to know the distant is limitless. Not only by muscle, but by vitality of their quest they are conquering the ins and outs of this world. But, we are domestic intimately…

Livingstone on the other hand, chooses to write in details about all his encounters, it can be said that his narrative conveys the sole purpose of his voyage,

...Large game, buffaloes, and zebras, were abundant abreast the island, but no men could be seen. On the mainland, over on the right bank of the river, we were amused by the eccentric gyrations and evolutions of flocks of small seed-eating birds, who in their flight wheeled into compact columns with such military precision as to give us the impression that they must be guided by a leader, and all directed by the same signal. Several other kinds of small birds now go in flocks, and among others the large Senegal swallow. The presence of this bird, being clearly in a state of migration from the north, while the common swallow of the country, and the brown kite are away beyond the equator, leads to the conjecture that there may be a double migration, namely, of birds from torrid climates to the more temperate, as this now is, as well as from severe winters to sunny regions; but this could not be verified by such birds of passage as ourselves…

This shows the intentions each of the travelers had, Tagore’s being his humanitarian work while Livingstone’s specific towards trade and commerce. Hence, it can be concluded that despite the different language usage or narratives, both the writers and writers of sorts record day to day experiences in diaries or journals because they wander with a purpose and a very specific motive that transcends all assumptions. And because of their accounts, what we have after their time are great stories and a desire to experience the same lands, like Ibn Battuta the great scholar and explorer of medieval world said, “Traveling leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.”