Page 118 - The Apu Trilogy_ Satyajit Ray and the Making of an Epic

Pather Panchali: Critique 105

the sky and decides to fetch an umbrella; now he has to think of
that too.
The verandah where the long-deceased Indir used to cook,
has somehow escaped the storm. Sarbajaya finds herself cooking
there. She is dead to the world, and when a neighbour comes
bringing food, she does not even notice her presence. It takes
the voice of her husband calling for his children to make her stir.
We know that Harihar has returned, oblivious of the disaster to
his family. Characteristically, both for him and for Ray’s sense
of drama, he is in good spirits, despite the damage to his house
that he cannot avoid seeing all around him. As Sarbajaya mutely
fetches him a seat, towel and water from inside and turns to go,
Harihar stops her. He wants to show her the presents he has
managed to bring. The third item, a sari for Durga which he
presses her to admire, is too much for Sarbajaya. To Harihar’s
great surprise she breaks out in unstoppable weeping, expressed
by the high notes of the tarshehnai described earlier. When
Harihar at last grasps that he has lost his daughter, he collapses
over his wife’s body.
Another director might have chosen to end the agonising
scene there. Ray, instead, returns us to Apu, a sad little fig-
ure standing behind the house holding the bottle of oil, which
is now full. Without expression he absorbs the sound of his
father’s sobs. This wordless shot, repeated like this, punctuates
the experience of his sister’s death, creating a satisfying sense
of Apu’s emerging knowledge of the world, and acts as a sub-
tle pointer to the growing dominance of Apu as the trilogy
progresses.
By the time we reach the very end, the hitherto passive Apu is
ready to take his first major decision in life. When he finds the
necklace hidden in a coconut shell on a high shelf, in the novel
he is described by Banerji as ‘lost in thought’. In the film – to
the accompaniment of an urgent drumming on the soundtrack –
we see Apu quickly pick up the dusty necklace from the floor,
glance towards the door to see if either of his parents or any of

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