Nature, Rural Life and Eco-critical understanding in Bibhutibhusan Bandopadhyay's Pather Panchali (Song of the Road)

Abstract

Literature is always a reflection of nature, society or surrounding and it perceives the transfiguration of the environment where we exist. Kate Soper writes – “…that nature is a series of changing cultural constructions that can be used to praise and blame”. Bibhutibhusan Bandopadhyay’s Pather Panchali (Song of the Road) is perhaps one of the greatest contributions to Bengali Literature for the depiction of changing cultural constructions. It is a vividly moving and utterly authentic portrayal of village people and the daily chores of their life at the backdrop of nature. Here the village and its natural landscape is not idealized; it is not explained or commented on; it is presented as it is, objectively at times, but more often subjectively, by the people who live in it. The two immortal characters – Opu and Durga walk along wondering what the road has in store for them round the next bend. Some of the stretches are lush with grass and fruit, gay with flowers and bird-song; but others are hard under foot and strewn with thorns; sometimes white - hot with the summer heat, sometimes lashed by storms and darkened by the threatening clouds; though always there is hope that the air will be kinder and going forward will be less burdensome. Through these romantic imageries, Opu and Durga still continue their journey, growing continuously in character and experience and in the nature of their dreams with a lot of expectation for the future. Besides the rural landscape and intricate depiction of nature, the novel also anticipates modern ecocritical concerns by typifying an intimate, everyday relationship between poverty-stricken villagers and the fragile ecosystems of rural Bengal. The study of the novel also examines how poverty and marginalization aggravates ecological accountability, suggesting that class and caste inequalities are inseparable from environmental injustice. The paper attempts to study nature, greenery, simplicity and its abundance as narrated by the author in the text. We would also try to discern how human perception connects idiosyncratically and impartially the condition of life with the serenity of nature and how green readings of the fiction offer a vernacular model of ecological consciousness.