Pather Panchali (novel) Pather Panchali (novel) Pather Panchali (, Pôther Pãchali, translated as Song of the Road) is a novel written by Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay and was later adapted into a film of the same name by Satyajit Ray. "Pather Panchali" deals with the life of the Roy family, both in their ancestral village in rural Bengal and later when they move to Varanasi in search of a better life, as well as the anguish and loss they face during their travels. It first appeared as a serial in a Calcutta periodical in 1928 and was published as a book the next year; it
Pather Panchali spectator". The soundtrack of the film was composed by the sitar player Ravi Shankar, who was at an early stage of his career, having debuted in 1939. The background scores feature pieces based on several ragas of Indian classical music, played mostly on the sitar. The soundtrack, described in a 1995 issue of "The Village Voice" as "at once plaintive and exhilarating", is featured in "The Guardian"s 2007 list of 50 greatest film soundtracks. It has also been cited as an influence on The Beatles, specifically George Harrison. Shankar saw about half the film in a roughly edited version before