HIST 3320: The History of Childhood

Week 11: Children and Family: A View from Late Colonial India

Tuesday, Nov. 5: Election Day

• Film Pather Panchali (Song of the Road) directed by Satyajit Ray.

Thursday, Nov. 7:

• Film Pather Panchali (Song of the Road) directed by Satyajit Ray.

Discussion of the Film

Discussion Question:  

• Satyajit Ray’s first film, Pather Panchali (Song of the Road), 1955, depicts rural life in late late nineteenth-early twentieth-century Bengal, India. The story revolves around the little boy Apu; his free-willed older sister Durga; his worried mother, Sarbajaya who, her husband being abroad, struggled with poverty and societal odds, but held the family together; and the kindly and destitute elderly aunt Indir. Described as a film of “elemental power,” how would you respond to Pather Panchali as a source of understanding an impoverished family, cultural norms, hierarchy, and changing socioeconomic situations in colonial India? 
• How would you read this film as a source of history? Is it for children? About children? On children? By children? 

DB#4 due on Nov. 9. Write a response reflecting on the above questions based on the film.

Pather Panchali (Bengali pronunciation: [pɔtʰer pãtʃali]; transl. Song of the Little Road) is a 1955 Indian Bengali-language drama film written and directed by Satyajit Ray and produced by the Government of West Bengal. It is based on Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay's 1929 Bengali novel of the same name and is Ray's directorial debut. It features Subir Banerjee, Kanu Banerjee, Karuna Banerjee, Uma Dasgupta and Chunibala Devi. The first film in The Apu Trilogy, Pather Panchali depicts the childhood of the protagonist Apu (Subir Banerjee) and his elder sister Durga (Uma Dasgupta) and the harsh village life of their poor family.