Some travelers carry maps.
Some carry passports.
Some carry caravans, cameras, notebooks, or scientific instruments.
Bimal Mukherjee carried a bicycle.
At a time when international travel was slow, expensive, difficult, and shaped by colonial barriers, he set out from Calcutta in 1926 with a dream that sounded almost impossible: to travel around the world on two wheels. Over the next eleven years, he crossed countries, continents, deserts, mountains, ports, cities, and cultures, becoming one of the earliest and most remarkable Indian globe-trotters.
His journey was not backed by modern gear, GPS navigation, lightweight touring cycles, travel insurance, cycling lanes, digital maps, or social media sponsorships. It was powered by endurance, curiosity, courage, improvisation, and a hunger to see the wider world.
For Indian travel history, Bimal Mukherjee deserves a far larger place than he usually receives.
He was not only a cyclist. He was an explorer, writer, witness, and symbol of Indian self-confidence in an age when colonial stereotypes often tried to portray Indians as physically weak, timid, or incapable of great adventurous achievement.
His journey answered that insult with motion.
A Young Man from Eastern India
Bimal Mukherjee was born in 1903 in Berhampur, in the Ganjam district of present-day Odisha. His ancestral family home was connected with Kolkata, and much of his public memory belongs to Bengal’s travel and literary culture.
He came of age in a period when India was still under British colonial rule. This matters deeply because his travels were not simply personal adventure. They took place in a world where Indian movement was shaped by empire, race, passports, permissions, shipping routes, colonial bureaucracy, and global inequalities.
For a young Indian in the 1920s to imagine a world bicycle journey was itself radical.
The bicycle had become more than a machine. It represented mobility, modernity, physical confidence, and personal freedom. In colonial India, cycling also became connected with youth culture, nationalist energy, scouting, fitness, and the desire to prove that Indians could match or surpass the adventurous feats celebrated in European travel writing.
Bimal Mukherjee belonged to that restless generation.
The Bicycle Before the World Tour
Before attempting the world journey, Mukherjee had already spent years traveling across India by bicycle.
This was important training.
Between 1921 and 1926, he reportedly toured widely across India, learning the practical realities of long-distance riding: road conditions, food, shelter, repairs, weather, fatigue, and the unpredictable hospitality of strangers.
India itself was a vast preparation ground.
To cycle across the subcontinent in the 1920s meant encountering plains, rivers, forests, princely states, colonial roads, railway towns, pilgrimage routes, and regions where modern transport infrastructure remained limited.
By the time Mukherjee prepared for his world expedition, he was not a beginner chasing fantasy. He had already learned that the road could be harsh, but also generous.
The Start from Calcutta Town Hall
On 12 December 1926, Bimal Mukherjee and his companions began their historic journey from Town Hall in Calcutta, now Kolkata.
He was accompanied at the start by Ashok Mukherjee, Ananda Mukherjee, and Manindra Ghosh. The group’s departure attracted public attention and enthusiasm. Crowds gathered to watch the young men begin an adventure that seemed almost unbelievable in colonial India.
Their first halt was at Chandannagar.
This beginning matters symbolically.
Calcutta was one of the great cities of British India: a center of politics, education, literature, commerce, and nationalist debate. To leave from Calcutta Town Hall was to begin from a place loaded with colonial and civic meaning.
The journey was not just a private ride. It was a public act of confidence.
A Journey Against Colonial Stereotypes
One of the most important ways to understand Bimal Mukherjee’s expedition is through the colonial context.
British colonial culture often carried stereotypes about Indians, and especially Bengalis, as physically weak or unsuited to extreme adventure. These stereotypes were deeply political. They were used to justify colonial authority and deny Indians equal standing in courage, discipline, and endurance.
Cycling around the world challenged that narrative.
Mukherjee and his companions were not simply enjoying sport. They were making a statement with their bodies.
Every mile said: Indians can endure.
Indians can explore.
Indians can cross the world.
Indians can write their own travel history.
In this sense, the journey belonged not only to adventure but also to self-respect.
Across India Toward the West
The early stage of the journey took the cyclists across northern and western India.
They moved through routes connected with Bengal, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, and eventually toward Karachi, then part of British India.
The journey across India itself included difficulties that foreshadowed the larger world ride ahead. Roads were rough. Supplies had to be managed carefully. Cycles were heavy. Weather was unpredictable. The riders had to depend on local hospitality, public curiosity, and sheer will.
One famous phase involved crossing the Thar Desert. In places where riding became impossible, they had to push or carry their bicycles through sand.
This image is powerful: the bicycle, symbol of modern speed and freedom, becoming a burden on the shoulder under the desert sun.
But they kept moving.
Karachi, Basra, and the Opening of Asia
From Karachi, the cyclists found passage by ship toward Basra in present-day Iraq.
This marked the shift from an Indian land journey into a wider Asian and global expedition.
Basra was an old trading port connected with the Persian Gulf, Mesopotamia, Arabia, and Indian Ocean routes. For centuries, it had been part of the commercial world linking India with West Asia.
For Bimal Mukherjee, reaching Basra meant entering the older geography of caravan and maritime exchange.
The journey then moved through regions connected with Arabia, Iran, Syria, Turkey, and the eastern Mediterranean — lands that had long been central to trade, empire, pilgrimage, and travel literature.
Through West Asia and the Middle East
The route through West Asia demanded cultural adaptability.
The cyclists had to navigate unfamiliar languages, currencies, border systems, climates, food habits, and political conditions. Unlike elite travelers with official escorts or wealthy patrons, they moved with limited resources and often depended on small acts of help.
Their experience would have included:
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finding places to sleep
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repairing cycles
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negotiating with local authorities
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managing food and water
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dealing with customs officials
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understanding unfamiliar roads
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earning goodwill from strangers
This kind of travel is rarely glamorous while it is happening. It is made of daily uncertainty.
But that is exactly what makes Mukherjee’s journey so remarkable. He did not merely travel across lines on a map. He survived the practical reality behind those lines.
Entering Europe
From the Middle East, the cyclists reached Europe.
They passed through countries and regions such as Greece, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, France, Britain, Scandinavia, and other parts of Europe.
Europe in the late 1920s was still recovering from the First World War and moving toward the political crises that would eventually lead to the Second World War. For Indian travelers, Europe was not only a continent; it was also the seat of imperial power, industrial modernity, racial hierarchy, and global influence.
To cycle through Europe as Indians in that era was a powerful reversal of the usual colonial gaze.
European travelers had long written about India.
Now Indian travelers were observing Europe.
Mukherjee’s memoir therefore belongs to an important tradition: Indians looking back at the world, not merely being looked at.
The Bohemian Alps in Winter
One of the most memorable episodes from the journey describes Mukherjee and his companions crossing the Bohemian Alps in winter with inadequate cold-weather clothing.
They reportedly had little protection against the extreme cold. Without proper woolens or gloves, they kept themselves warm by cycling vigorously and even alternated keeping one hand inside their clothing while the other held the handlebar.
The story captures the entire spirit of the journey.
It was not polished.
It was not comfortable.
It was not professionally equipped.
It was raw endurance.
Modern cycling expeditions often involve technical clothing, support systems, route planning, weather apps, insulated gear, and emergency communication. Mukherjee’s world had none of that. Cold was not a data point on a screen. It was a physical enemy.
And the answer was movement.
Britain, America, and the Wider World
After moving through Europe, Mukherjee’s journey continued toward Britain and then across the Atlantic world.
He visited the United States and parts of the Americas, including South American regions such as Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Brazil in different accounts of the journey. He also traveled through the Caribbean and Hawaii before moving toward East Asia.
The route shows the extraordinary scale of his ambition.
He was not attempting a regional journey. He was attempting a planetary one.
In the United States, accounts suggest he encountered racism directly. This experience would have reminded him that colonial attitudes were not confined to India. Race shaped movement across the modern world.
For a brown traveler from colonized India, the road was never neutral.
It opened possibilities, but it also exposed barriers.
East Asia and the Road Home
Mukherjee’s later journey took him through Japan, China, Hong Kong, Indochina, Southeast Asia, and eventually back toward India.
These regions were themselves undergoing intense historical change.
Japan was rising as a major imperial power. China was facing internal conflict and foreign pressure. Southeast Asia was shaped by colonial rule, trade networks, migrant communities, and nationalist stirrings.
For Mukherjee, these were not abstract geopolitical zones. They were roads, ports, people, meals, repairs, weather, documents, and conversations.
His journey created an Indian view of a changing world between the two World Wars.
When he finally returned to Calcutta in 1937, he had been away for roughly eleven years.
A Journey of Eleven Years
It is difficult to fully imagine what eleven years of travel meant in the early 20th century.
Today, a traveler can cross continents in hours. Communication is instant. Money can be transferred digitally. Maps are available on phones. Help can often be contacted quickly.
Mukherjee traveled in a different universe.
Letters took time. Borders were uncertain. Funds were limited. Illness could become dangerous. Mechanical breakdowns could halt progress. Political instability could change routes. A missed ship could alter months of planning.
The bicycle made him mobile, but also vulnerable.
Every day required decision-making.
Every road required trust.
Every country required adaptation.
That he completed the journey at all is extraordinary.
Du Chakay Duniya: The World on Two Wheels
Bimal Mukherjee recorded his experiences in the Bengali travel memoir Du Chakay Duniya, meaning The World on Two Wheels.
The book is central to his legacy.
Without it, his journey might have survived only as scattered memory. Through the memoir, his experiences entered Bengali travel literature and became part of India’s written history of exploration.
The title itself is beautiful because it captures the simplicity and grandeur of his achievement.
The world — on two wheels.
His writing preserved not only routes and incidents, but also the feeling of early long-distance bicycle travel: fatigue, humor, danger, wonder, hunger, pride, discomfort, and the human connections that make impossible journeys possible.
Indian Travel Writing Beyond Pilgrimage and Empire
Bimal Mukherjee’s work belongs to a wider history of Indian travel writing.
For centuries, Indian travel had been recorded through pilgrimage, trade, scholarship, religious journeys, political missions, and regional movement. But modern Indian travel writing in the colonial period took on new forms.
It began to include:
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global journeys
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nationalist self-assertion
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encounters with Europe
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reflections on modernity
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comparison between societies
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personal adventure
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physical endurance
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new technologies like the bicycle
Mukherjee’s memoir sits in this modern tradition.
It shows an Indian traveler not as a subject of empire, but as an observer of the world.
The Bicycle as a Democratic Travel Machine
The bicycle was central to Mukherjee’s story not only as transport, but as philosophy.
A bicycle is modest.
It does not require fuel.
It is slower than a train or ship, but more intimate.
It brings the traveler close to weather, roads, smells, landscapes, and people.
It makes the body part of the journey.
For an Indian traveler in the 1920s, the bicycle offered a relatively affordable way to imagine global mobility.
It was a democratic machine: fragile, repairable, human-powered, and open to those without great wealth.
Mukherjee’s world journey shows how a simple vehicle can become a tool of imagination.
Travel as Endurance, Not Consumption
One reason Bimal Mukherjee feels especially relevant today is that his travel was the opposite of modern consumption-driven tourism.
He did not travel to collect luxury experiences.
He did not move through curated destinations.
He did not perform travel for instant approval.
He traveled slowly, painfully, bodily.
He earned distance through effort.
This kind of travel changes the meaning of place. A city reached after months of cycling is not the same as a city reached by a direct flight. A mountain crossed in cold and hunger is not the same as a mountain viewed from a resort balcony.
Mukherjee’s journey reminds us that travel once demanded a deeper negotiation with the world.
A Forgotten Indian Explorer
Despite the scale of his achievement, Bimal Mukherjee remains far less known than many global explorers.
This is partly because travel history has often been written around European names. Indian explorers, cyclists, monks, sailors, scholars, and wanderers have not always received the attention they deserve.
It is also because many Indian travel texts written in regional languages remain under-read outside their linguistic communities.
Bengali readers may know more of Mukherjee than wider Indian audiences, but even within India his name is not as widely remembered as it should be.
His story deserves recovery.
Not because he was the only Indian traveler of his era, but because he represents a larger tradition of Indian mobility, courage, and world curiosity that has too often been forgotten.
Companions and Collective Beginnings
Although Bimal Mukherjee is remembered as the one who completed the full world journey, the expedition began as a group effort.
Ashok Mukherjee, Ananda Mukherjee, and Manindra Ghosh were part of the original cycling team that left Calcutta with him. Their role matters because great journeys often begin collectively even if history later remembers one name most strongly.
The image of the four cyclists leaving together captures the youthful confidence of the period.
They were not simply riding cycles. They were riding against expectation.
Even if only Bimal completed the entire journey, the collective beginning remains part of the story.
Return to Calcutta
When Bimal Mukherjee returned to Calcutta in 1937, the world had changed.
India was moving closer to independence, though freedom was still a decade away. Global politics were darkening as another world war approached. The places he had crossed were entering new crises, new nationalisms, new conflicts, and new futures.
He returned not only as a traveler but as a witness to the interwar world.
After his journey, he eventually settled into a more ordinary life, including work in banking, but the extraordinary road remained his defining legacy.
His later years were quieter than his cycling years, but the memoir ensured that the journey did not disappear completely.
The Question of Dates and Memory
Some details of Bimal Mukherjee’s life are reported differently in later sources, including his year of death. Many sources give 1987, while some later secondary references report 1996.
This uncertainty itself tells us something important.
When a major traveler is not well preserved in mainstream historical institutions, facts can become scattered. Dates differ. Editions vary. Memories survive through articles, family accounts, old books, regional publishing, and rediscovery by readers.
The solution is not to ignore him because records are imperfect. It is to study him more seriously.
Bimal Mukherjee deserves better documentation, republication, translation, and public remembrance.
Why Bimal Mukherjee Still Matters
Bimal Mukherjee matters because he expanded the imagination of Indian travel.
He proved that an Indian traveler in the colonial era could take on the world with limited resources, physical endurance, and intellectual curiosity. He turned the bicycle into a vehicle of global exploration and transformed an ordinary machine into a symbol of courage.
His journey also reminds us that Indian travel history is not only about ancient pilgrims, royal envoys, monks, or modern tourists. It is also about cyclists, wanderers, writers, and ordinary young people who dared to move beyond the boundaries assigned to them.
He matters because he saw the world before Indians were politically free to stand fully equal in it.
He matters because he wrote that world back in Bengali.
He matters because his story belongs in the same larger conversation as the great travelers of history — not as a footnote, but as an Indian voice of motion, endurance, and possibility.
In the long history of exploration, Bimal Mukherjee stands as one of India’s most inspiring travel figures: a man who left Calcutta on a bicycle and returned after eleven years with the world behind him and a story that still deserves to be read, remembered, and celebrated.
