ABSTRACT
This article focuses on vernacular travel writings on America and Europe by Swami Satyadev ‘Parivrajak’ (1879–1961), one of the first persons to systematically write travelogues in Hindi. I argue that Parivrajak’s travel literature was part of a colonised nation’s attempt to reclaim a space of freedom, forged through the carving of ‘perfect masculine bodies’, which embodied his ideals of beauty and pleasure. It was a performative, political act that inscribed gendered landscapes with a dialogue between East and West, slavery and freedom. The Hindu male’s subaltern masculinity had to be overcome through diverse means, all of which metaphorically interacted to shape Parivrajak’s writings.
