The Rayvishing Apu

From the earliest GK books, I remember reading about the stalwart that was Satyajit Ray. So much so that Apu always sounded like a neighbourhood friend, and Pather Panchali felt like a national pride.

Greatness, thrice over- The three movies of Apu Trilogy

Saw the Apu Trilogy last week. I am sure many have felt the same as I did over the six hours of watching these films. Usually one ends up giving the good old star rating to the admirable cinema one sees. It doesn't, however, work for these three features, simply because they are off the charts. Such limited means and such assured film-making debut is borderline unbelievable. Comparisons across timelines are tricky, but pound for pound, the films easily make one of the best cinema we have produced in the land.

And yet somewhere they also feel more than celluloid. The characters are earthy, their joys are simple, and their travails move you. All the age groups can relate to the family of five in Pather: husband and wife (Harihar & Sarbajaya), two kids (Apu & Durga), and Pishi Ma (kid's aunt, father's old cousin who stays with the family). Uma Dasgupta, who received a set of Tagore works from Ray as remuneration for playing the village teenage girl Durga, is clinical as a kid balancing her childish mischievous urges with homely duties. You revisit your childhood as you watch young Durga playing around bamboo thickets and orchards, and bringing back a stolen guava for her Pishi Ma (named Indir), a character played with such natural flair by the octogenarian Chunibala Devi that it looks like real documentation of her daily life. No wonder the performance was a favorite of Ray himself. One is not irritated, but empathetic to the quarrelsome mother Sarbajaya, played with finesse by Karuna Banerjee, as she's maddened by the increasingly difficult task of managing the household within limited means. Though the line between insecurity and rudeness is crossed in a fine manner in her squabble with Indir, one sees her matured sensibility and fortitude in Aparajito. It is perhaps owing to the great role that women play in early life of all humanity that even though the trilogy is named after the male protagonist, the first feature, Pather Panchali, is mostly about the three women, their joys and struggles, at various stages of life. Ray's uncanny understanding and portrayal of a child's psyche and a woman's mind is remarkable. The quiet sorrow of them passing away not only brings tears, but also melancholia.

At some point in Aparajito, a train hurries across the Bengal countryside. Unlike the once-in-a-blue-moon event in his childhood hutment, the train can be seen from just outside his new house in the village. On cue, an elated Apu runs out only to have a painful realisation of Durga's absence by his side. Not an inch extra in the emotion displayed, nor a note in excess in the background score rendered by Pandit Ravi Shankar, and all the sentiment is transferred and resonated in equal measure in the viewer. Here's a film-maker who's not just assertive in his craft, but also confident and respectful of his audience, even if they are used to theatrics in cinema of the day and their collective literacy rate stands at 25%.

The symbolism continues in Apur Sansar, the last instalment of the series. Having got married in tumultuous circumstances, Apu's young wife, a spectacular debut by Sharmila Tagore, comes to his modest household. Crying by the window, the frame captures the face of the Bengal bride through a tattered curtain. Tears flowing down her Kolka-decorated eyes, she sees a mother playing with a child in the courtyard. An allegory to where she was some years ago, an augur of where she'll be in the near future, everything captured through the time-warped curtain. Moments later one sees that the curtain is replaced by a newly sewed piece of cloth letting the breeze in, and one gets that Apu's life is getting not just organised but also happy.

Apu is of course a character arc that is text-book material for connoisseurs of cinema. An evolution that also keeps the hues of the past. How Ray keeps the core of Apu intact among three actors (Subir Banerjee, Pinaki Sen Gupta & Soumitra Chatterjee) who play him in childhood, adolescence, and adult life is worth a case study itself in the actors' studio.

In the day, Apu Trilogy was celebrated in Berlin, Cannes, Venice, and other nerve centres of cinema. It is indeed a medallion for the highest podium. But its true essence and achievement lies in it being an ID card that you wear around your neck every day.

Apu is a metaphor for the soul of the young nation.