Page 145 - The Apu Trilogy_ Satyajit Ray and the Making of an Epic

132 The Apu Trilogy

At Pulu’s request, Apu expatiates on the novel he is writing
in his room. Like many first novels, it turns out to be autobio-
graphical. A village boy, ‘poor, but sensitive’ (the second adjec-
tive is spoken in English by Apu), whose late father was a priest,
decides to study hard, come to the city, shed his old supersti-
tions, learn to use his intellect and imagination, and strive for
greatness. Although he does not achieve this, and remains poor,
he does not run away from responsibility but instead ‘learns to
live!’, says Apu excitedly. The stolid Pulu is unconvinced: where
is the novelist’s invention, he asks. A lot of it is fiction, responds
Apu, with imaginary characters, a plot and love interest. What
can Apu possibly know about love, says a crushing Pulu. ‘Have
you ever been within ten yards of a girl?’ (A line that would obvi-
ously have been impossible, had Ray included Apu’s girlfriend
Lila in Aparajito, as originally intended.) Surely imagination
counts in writing novels, as well as experience, insists Apu hotly.
Not where love is concerned, replies Pulu bluntly. They quarrel
in a friendly way in the silent railway yard – and we realise how
naively romantic about the world Apu is.
In the very next scene, Apu is on his way by boat with Pulu to
the family wedding in the riverine village away from Calcutta,
with fateful consequences. We first see Aparna as a young, bash-
ful bride being decorated for her wedding by her mother and the
other women of the family. Apu is outside all of this ceremony,
but the way in which he is included in the camera movement
and editing of the sequence implies that he will eventually be
drawn into the wedding. The wedding band arrives, escorting
the bridegroom’s marriage party along the bank beside the river.
Above them, at the top of the bank, as the camera follows the
party below, we eventually come to Apu stretched out beneath
a tree in a doze, with his head on a collection of Tagore’s poetry
and his flute in his hand, like the god Krishna on the banks of
the Kalindi. The band plays their own raucous version of ‘For
He’s A Jolly Good Fellow’ – strange, perhaps, to western ears in
this rustic Indian context, but quite familiar to Bengali ears used

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