Ray's anti-colonial approach in adapting Tagore's works: A study into Ray's film The Postmaster (1961).

This article examines Satyajit Ray’s anti-colonial approach in adapting Rabindranath Tagore’s works, focusing primarily on Ray’s 1961 film *The Postmaster* and three of his short stories: "Neel Atanka" (1968), "First Class Kamra" (1981), and "Robertsoner Ruby" (1992). It argues that Ray’s anti-colonial framework centers on the traumatic colonial past of characters and their present-day anti-colonial retribution, as exemplified by the postmaster’s confrontation with his colonial legacy and emotional reckoning in *The Postmaster*. The article also highlights Ray’s innovative film adaptation method, which preserves the brevity and thematic precision of the original short stories rather than expanding them into conventional feature-length films, thereby challenging existing theoretical models of literary adaptation. Through this analysis, Ray’s work is positioned as a significant cultural critique of colonialism and its lingering effects in post-independence India.