ABSTRACT
This paper evaluates Pattachitrakatha, a traditional cloth-based art narrative from Bengal, as a folk media genre, constructing the identity of Indian women. Pattachitra originated over 2,500 years ago, combining visual storytelling with music and oral traditions, evolving through socio-cultural changes, globalization, and technological advancements. This paper looks into the inner and the outer spaces, the physical spaces and the psychic spaces of Indian women and how it is transformed and reconstructed by the choices of time through Pattachitrakatha, specifically during the nationalist movement. Moreover, the paper deals with the politics of feminising the bodies within the collective images of Indian women. The paper also studies the paradox of seeing an Indian woman and being an Indian woman in Indian folk-art form since and after the nationalist period, and tries to look critically into the transformation of the imaging and idealisation of Indian Women since visual text is a subtler signifier of sensibility.
