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This paper attempts to look at the representation of environment through the fantasy plants described in the short stories of Satyajit Ray namely, “Septopus’er Kheede”, “Kanai’er Kotha”, and “Bishphul”. For the purpose of writing the paper, a postcolonial ecological perspective has been employed. It is through postcolonialism that the marginalised states of both worlds are taken into consideration with the colonial gaze influencing the minds of those taking the lead. In these stories, nature has been portrayed as a consequence of human intervention, distortion, vengeance, role reversals as well as desolation, hence bridging the gap between the human and the non-human world. A recurring element is the inversion of the binaries of power which leads to macabre punishments and poetic justice. It is through these short stories that the relationship between power and responsibility is portrayed with Ray calling for an awareness concerning the ecology and that of the self.
Ms. Swayama Sengupta. “Representation of Postcolonial Ecological Paradigms in Select Short Stories of Satyajit Ray.” The Criterion: An International Journal in English, vol. 17, no. 4, August 2026, pp. 405-417. DOI, https://doi.org/10.66376/criterion.v17.n4.25.
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