A Quest for Freedom: An Indian Female Traveller’s Struggles in Nabaneeta Dev Sen’s Travel Writings

Travelling is often associated with exercising freedom, overcoming barriers and limitations. This is Eeven more so if it is a woman who goes on a journey breaking patriarchal norms, challenging gender-based prejudice. This articlepaper will aim to analyseat analysing selected travel writings of Nabaneeta Dev Sen, one of most eminent Indian Bengali female writers of the 20th century. Apart from being a successful author of fictio,n Dev Sen is also a keen traveller and has a number of travel books to her credit. Travelling alone or in a group she goes to different parts of India, sometimes remote and at another time - overcrowded. In her writings, along with observations and reports from the journeys, she shares her feelings and thoughts on freedom, womanhood, family and culture. This articlepaper will focus on theis part of Nabaneeta Dev Sen’s travel writings that examines personal experience of being an Indian female traveller. What motivates her to take to the road? What image of the society and of herself does she create through her writings?