From Nature's Lap to Nature's Scrape: Depiction of Nature in Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhya's Pather Panchali and Uzma Aslam Khan's Trespassing

<p>Ecocriticism is a comparatively new<br>approach of reading, interpreting, and<br>analyzing literature or art. It is an<br>extensive theory that expects not only an<br>engagement with nature, but also with the<br>challenges, the crisis that nature or<br>environment faces and hence deals within<br>a way an ecocritical reading of a novel<br>helps to extend our understanding of bio<br>diversity and related issues. This paper<br>intends to make a comparative study of the<br>depiction of eco conscious values by the<br>two authors under consideration. It will<br>also attempt at investigating<br>Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhya’s eco<br>consciousness as depicted in his novel<br>Pather Panchali-Song of the Road through<br>his two major characters, the sister-brother<br>duo- Durga and Apu as against modern<br>eco centric challenges depicted by Uzma<br>Aslam Khan in her novel Trespassing. The<br>paper also endeavors to trace ecosophy/<br>eco philosophy and deep ecology as<br>presented by Bandopadhya in his novel<br>against commercial exploitation nature<br>leading to various form of pollution and<br>gradual ecocide. </p>