Pather Panchali is a famous social realist novel written by renowned writer Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay. The book was first published in 1929. Pather Panchali means ‘Song of the Little Road’. I have many memories associated with this novel from my childhood. So today I will talk about this classic timeless creation.
Review
Although ‘Pather Panchali’ (পথের পাঁচালী) is a novel, but it never once feels like a novel while reading it. Rather, the author has presented a simple and normal form of the real and living picture of our society in clear language in this novel.
We, the third generation, have ever wondered how a woman feels when she is constantly oppressed, neglected, because she has no source of income, limited power, structural weakness?
When a maidservant approaches her last days, what is her social situation like? When a woman loses her husband at a young age and the society doesn’t allow her to remarry, where does that woman stand in society? All these questions are answered very perfectly in Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay’s novel Pather Panchali.
In the first part of this novel ‘Ballali-Balai’ (বল্লালী-বালাই), we see child marriage and dowry, one of the defects of the social system of the time, taking a monstrous form. Indir Thakrun was married at a young age to a man who married elsewhere for the sake of high dowry and never came back. Then the penniless Indir Thakrun took up residence in her father’s house; and after their and her brother’s death, the house of her distant relative Harihar became her place.
There she was reminded every moment that she (Indir Thakrun) was nothing but a sheltered, merciful woman. She often went out of the house, but at the end of the day she ended up at Harihar’s house. Once she was thrown out of the house by incident and tragically ended her life. She died of helplessness.
In the second part of this novel, ‘Aam Antir Venpu’ (আম আঁটির ভেঁপু), the sour-sweet relationship between Harihar’s two children – the elder daughter Durga and the younger son Apu is very well presented.
Durga at one point beats Apu, because he tells about stealing and eating mangoes from their neighbor’s house. For this reason, she (Durga) has to listen to their neighbor. In anger, Durga’s mother Sarvajaya scolded her. At one point in the novel, Durga succumbs to malarial fever and dies.
The last part of the novel, ‘Akrur Sangbad’ (অক্রুর সংবাদ), highlights the traditional Bengali rich-poor discrimination.
The author successfully shows what happens to a Brahmin woman (Sarvajaya) when she has to work as a laborer for money. After Durga’s death, they left the village and moved elsewhere. There once her husband Harihar also died of fever. There was no one to wipe tears from her eyes. Everyone wants to take advantage of her suffering. No one extends a helping hand.
Finally, fed up with the torture, she left for her native village Nischindipur with her son Apu. But she doesn’t find her right way.
But needless to say that, this social inequality is observed even in this developed society in today’s twenty first century. In fact, this novel is a reflection of early and current social ups and downs and social prejudices.
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