“Open my heart and you will see / Graved inside of it, ‘Italy’” ❤️

Born to Wander: The Transnational Journeys of Tagore, Browning, and Jhabvala

This morning, we had a rewarding time discussing collaborations and global engagement with senior officials from Deakin University, Australia.

What’s quite interesting about today’s interactions is that, Deakin made history by becoming the very first foreign university in the world to establish an international teaching campus in India – in Gujarat - followed by University of Wollongong (Australia).

I was quite surprised and wonder-amazed at this fascinating shift! From students migrating to better pastures abroad for their higher studies, to those very same global universities coming all the way to India, to set up physical campuses - it’s indeed been a paradigm shift of sorts!

Bespeaks to the importance of transnational education made available to our students at just 1/3rd of the costs.

The initiative is a bold and welcome move, as it solves the problem of academic access, and makes available transnational education at our doorsteps.

At the same time, however, I personally feel that, in a way, it dilutes the profound cultural and geographical immersion that comes from physically crossing borders - that transnational travel seeks to endow our students with!

It could be navigating our way through a foreign grocery store, decode local slang, or connecting with new people - this geographic displacement that accompanies such travels are quite essential to shaping one’s perspectives and ‘world’views, ain’t it?

Again, today I had calls and messages from our students who are currently in Japan and in Korea, describing their adventurous experiences in navigating their way to the local grocery, the weather, the food, the people, and yes, the little earthquakes that gave them that little lubtub moments, etc. 😊

Indeed, I personally feel that, such transnational travels help in discovering ourselves!

In this regard, let’s do a quick take on how these transnational travels have helped three great writers – who are celebrating their birthdays today – Tagore, Browning, and Jhabvala – who were able to experience their authentic voices by stepping outside their familiar boundaries, and thereby were able to uncover hidden facets of their own identities when they stepped outside of their comfort zone!

#onhisbirthdaytoday #onherbirthdaytoday

7th May 2026

Yes, today happens to be the birthday of three literary giants - Robert Browning, Rabindranath Tagore, and Ruth Prawer Jhabvala.

And although all three writers come from different literary traditions, one particular aspect that unites them all is the fact that, all three of them were great travellers whose travel experiences have inspired and impacted their writing much-o-much!

First and foremost, let’s take up Tagore, Rabindranath Tagore!

Although Tagore was deeply rooted in the Bengal landscape, he was a frequent global traveller as well!

In fact, his visits to over 30 countries across five continents between 1878 and 1932 have deeply influenced his writing and worldview. His trips - that were sometimes months-long or even years-long, were more than mere vacations. They were experiences that shaped his thought-processes, his world-views and his personality for the better!

England in particular was Tagore’s most frequent destination, where he was exposed to English literature, Western classical music, and British society.

During his long stays here, he made use of the opportunity to interact with the English literary giants of the time - including W.B. Yeats and Ezra Pound - leading to the publication of Gitanjali and his subsequent Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913.

In fact it was Yeats who wrote the Introduction to his Gitanjali.

He also travelled five times to the US, staying there for many months to lecture, meet intellectuals, and raise funds for his school in Santiniketan.

He spent several months living in Urbana, Illinois, where his son Rathindranath was studying agriculture at the University of Illinois. This was one of the most productive periods of his writing!

He also undertook a lot of lecture tours in the US!

Then, he travelled to Argentina, which was one of his most romanticised staycations! 😊

The famous Argentine writer Victoria Ocampo, who was also a devoted admirer of Tagore’s work, hosted him for two months at the Villa Ocampo! And this sylvan residency, literally rejuvenated him. Under this spell, he started writing a host of poems dedicated to Ocampo!

He then visited Japan where he lived for a month, during which time he developed a deep admiration for Japanese aesthetics, traditional arts, and the Shinto reverence for nature.

After his Japanese travels, he embarked on a high-profile tour of China, lecturing in Beijing and interacting with leading Chinese intellectuals like Liang Qichao, attempting to bridge Indian and Chinese philosophical traditions.

After this, throughout the 1920s and early 1930s, Tagore toured Europe continuously, meeting with luminaries like Albert Einstein in Germany and Romain Rolland in Switzerland. In 1930, he also made a trip to the Soviet Union, staying in Moscow. He was deeply fascinated by their massive educational campaigns and agricultural cooperatives!

To Tagore, travelling was never about tourism! it was an educative experience, philosophical experience and a therapeutic experience as well. On this account, he viewed himself as a global citizen - a Visva-Kabi (World Poet) – aimed at breaking down the narrow walls of hatred and prejudice and create a “world where the mind is without fear and the head is held high.”

Before he set out on his extensive travels, much of his work was deeply embedded in the specific cultural and political milieu of Bengal. However, as he moved across Europe, America(s), and Asia, his writing began to reflect a universalist perspective.

He then started envisioning literature not as a national product, but as a global dialogue!

You may want to read our past post where Tagore talks about Visva Sahitya HERE on our blog.

Secondly, let’s take up Browning - Robert Browning!

Although Browning was English, his greatest creative period occurred during his travels abroad, especially during his fifteen years’ stay in Italy. Here, he learnt a lot of Italian history, Renaissance art, and local culture, and from this vantage ‘foreign’ space, he was able to look at Victorian society from an insider-outsider’s perspective!

At the same time, it’s quite important to note that, while Tagore travelled across five continents and visited over thirty countries, Browning’s travels were almost exclusively confined to the European continent. Instead of globe-trotting or globe-hopping, Browning preferred deep, prolonged immersion in specific cultures, which had a profound influence on his poetry.

In short, Italy may be said to be the centre of Browning’s creative and personal life. Following his famous secret marriage and elopement with Elizabeth Barrett Browning in 1846 (fleeing her tyrannical father), the couple moved to Italy and stayed there for fifteen years.

They frequently spent summers escaping the Florentine heat in Siena or the Apennine mountains, and spent significant time in Rome and Venice. Browning’s love for Italy was so profound that upon his death, he was living in his son’s home in Venice in 1889. He famously wrote, “Open my heart and you will see / Graved inside of it, ‘Italy’.”

France was Browning’s second most visited foreign country. After their secret wedding, Robert and Elizabeth initially fled to Paris before making their way south to Italy. After Elizabeth died in 1861, Browning returned to London. However, he frequently spent his summers in France, particularly in the coastal regions of Brittany and Normandy, enjoying the rugged landscapes which inspired several of his later poems.

Before he became a famous poet, a 21-year-old Browning undertook an adventurous trip to the Russian Empire. He travelled there as secretary to the Russian consul-general, journeying by ship to Rotterdam, then traveling overland by coach through vast stretches of snow to St. Petersburg. Although he only stayed about three months, the vast, wintry landscapes and the political atmosphere left a lasting impression, heavily influencing his early long poems like Sordello and later works like Ivàn Ivànovitch.

Browning also spent time in the Swiss Alps. He and Elizabeth sometimes traveled through Switzerland en route between England and Italy, and he returned there occasionally in his later, post-Italy years for summer holidays.

Now let’s look at Jhabvala - Ruth Prawer Jhabvala! 

Ruth Prawer Jhabvala’s relationship with international travel was quite different. She lived and travelled across four entirely different countries - Germany, England, India, and the United States - and these were more of geographical displacements than travels, and these displacements impacted and influenced her writing style to a great extent.

Jhabvala was born in Germany to a Jewish family and was forced to flee to England in 1939 as a refugee from the Nazi regime. This early, traumatic uprooting instilled in her a lifelong sense of exile, that could be evidenced in the theme of perpetual rootlessness, that’s part and parcel of almost all her writings, including her poignant 1966 autobiographical essay titled, “Myself in India”.

As a result of this perpetual rootlessness, she described herself as a person with “no roots.” Consequently, almost all of her fiction centres on characters who are spiritually or physically displaced. Whether they are European refugees, Western spiritual seekers in the East, or Indians navigating post-colonial shifts, her protagonists are typically outsiders searching for a sense of belonging that forever eludes them.

In the year 1951, she married an Indian architect and moved to Delhi, where she lived for 24 years. This relocation produced her most famous body of work, including her Booker Prize-winning novel Heat and Dust.

Her final major migration was to New York in 1975, a city where she finally felt comfortable!

Well, all three writers - then - describe the human condition and the human psyche when it is caught between colliding cultures, and all three of them were able to describe the transnational experience in their own unique ways through their oeuvre.

That’s hence, on careful analysis of their writing, one can see in all three writers – a rejection of a singular, omniscient, and reliable authorial voice, thereby disrupting the concept of a monolithic, mono-cultural literary identity, and embraced polyphony, instead, allowing their characters to reveal their own psychological landscapes!

In short, the most significant writings of all these three literary giants – born on this day – 7th May - exemplify the transnational human condition - living at the intersection of differing cultures, and thereby acting as literary bridges while navigating the complexities of displacement!

Literary bridges! 😊 Sounds lovely, isn’t it?

You may want to read more on the concept of literary bridges, in our past blogpost HERE.

If you are a travel buff, you may also want to read our Six-Part Travel Writing Series that we did HERE on our blog way back in the year 2018.