Focusing the Village: Satyajit Ray's Pather Panchali and Prafulla Mohanti's My Village, My Life

Gandhi insisted that the spirit of India lives in its villages, but the drift away from the village and toward urbanization in post- independence India continues. Questions arise regarding the ideological motivations driving artists’ treatments of the village in various notable works in the modern South Asian canon. A comparison is drawn between Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali [1955] and Orissan artist and author Prafulla Mohanti’s My Village, My Life [1973]. While at first glance the two may seem to have little to do with another, a close consideration reveals some striking similarities between them, providing some compelling insights into Ray’s methods and vision.