Folktale is a part of folklore literature, orally transferred in the shape of poems, songs, myths, dramas, rituals, proverbs and riddles of a particular place or people while folklore is considered as the amalgam of the customs, legends, traditions, old deities and timeless tales that preserved and passed from one generation to the other. One such richly endowed oral literature belongs to the state of Odisha, where grandchildren have grown up listening to stories from Mahabharata, Abolakara Kahani, Bagula-Baguli chronicles, The Legend of Taw-poi, The heroic feat of Dharmapada, Jataka Tales, and many other myths and legends that are popular among the people indigenous to this region. Fakir Mohan Senapati, Krishna Chandra Panigrahi and Chakradhar Mahapatra are pioneer in interweaving Odia folk elements into short stories. This paper will strive to critically appreciate the selected short fictions of Shri Raghabananda Dash and Ranjan Pradhan to explore the eco-critical elements from their works such as Kathalahari (1927) and Tales From Hill and Jungle (2009) respectively. It represents the very essence of rural Odia culture, nature and tribal communities and focuses on the images of the stereotyping psychology that constructs human relationships with the non-human world. The study will analyze the vernacular tongue, employment of supernatural elements and magic realism used by Dash and Pradhan which replicate a unique enchanting quality of Odia folktales. In stark contrast to these idiosyncratic embellishments many British writers like William Wordsworth, Thomas Hardy, Gilbert White, Stephen Moss, and Philip Henser and American writers like H.D Thoreau, Richard Wright, W.C. Byrant, William Bartram, Oscar Wilde have regarded Nature as a symbol of transcendence and focused on the environment and our surroundings through their works. However, none of the works of the Western raconteurs have any similarity with the moral, educational and realistic repertoire that Odia folklore encompasses. Unfortunately, the advent of capitalism and globalism has scrambled us into a generation of self-conscious suppressors of our own illustrious past. Therefore, this paper will endeavour to revoke fresh discourses about Odia folktale as an eminent and timeless component of the Indian literary tradition occupied with abundance of green studies by maintain a fine balance between ‘Culture’ and ‘Nature’.
Folktale, Eco-psychology, Nature-Culture, Stereotype, Anthropocentrism, Transition from Tradition to Modern
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