Page 116 - The Apu Trilogy_ Satyajit Ray and the Making of an Epic

Pather Panchali: Critique 103

what happens when a person dies. And it is Apu, not Durga,
who races the train, climbs the railway embankment, and is seen
– now without his crown – by the camera from the other side of
the tracks, through gaps in the passing train wheels, excitedly
watching the train disappear into the distance. Again, it is a hint
of his coming career as a regular train traveller and future stu-
dent of science. Durga, who on her sickbed will later wistfully
mention the train to Apu and look forward to seeing another
train with him, is destined never again to set eyes on one.
Appropriately, it is Durga too who first spots their dying auntie
squatting in the bamboo grove. As Apu looks on in anticipation,
an affectionate Durga tries to wake up the old woman by shak-
ing her – as once we saw her wake up her young brother on the
morning of his first day at school by opening his sleeping eye
with her fingers. But instead of the old aunt awaking, her body
crashes to the ground. No description in words could capture
the mingling of beauty, horror and mystery in this scene. The
strange, subdued atmosphere is obliquely intensified by three
details: the faintly sinister creaking of the tall bamboos, the dis-
arranged wisps of Durga’s hair outlined against the sky, and the
glinting metal water pot of old Indir that Durga accidentally
kicks down the slope into a ditch as she runs away. We have seen
this pot many times before, when its owner was alive; now she
will never again have need of it or the life-giving water she so
recently begged from a reluctant Sarbajaya.
Towards the end of the film, on a morning after Durga’s death,
there is another sequence that epitomises the many-stranded tex-
ture of Pather Panchali – this time with overt emotion. It begins
with Apu silently cleaning his teeth near the pond, an unfa-
miliar faraway look in his eyes. Sarbajaya, her hair dishevelled
and her sari crumpled, draws water from the village well. Apu
goes into the monsoon-devastated house, roughly combs his hair
and wraps his shawl around him – actions that a doting sister
and mother used to perform. He picks up an empty oil bottle
and is about to set off for the grocer’s store when he looks up at

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