Page 148 - The Apu Trilogy_ Satyajit Ray and the Making of an Epic

The World of Apu: Critique 135

The World of Apu: Apu and Aparna’s return to Calcutta, ignored by his
downstairs neighbour

The series of short scenes in Calcutta lasting about 20 minutes
that show the new couple together are, in Robin Wood’s phrase,
‘one of the cinema’s classic affirmative depictions of married life.’
Through her love, Aparna finally convinces a disbelieving Apu
that she does not regret marrying a man without money or pos-
sessions. Part of the pathos derives from the fact that the scenes
take place in the very same physical surroundings in which we
came to know Apu the bachelor. Almost unconsciously, we com-
pare. As Apu emerges from inside playing his flute (a Tagore
melody well known in Bengal later used in a hit Hindi film),
and observes every little action of Aparna as she prepares to cook
on her brazier, we inevitably think of Apu as a bachelor lying
alone on a rumpled bed, shyly closing the shutter of the window
against the stare of the girl next door with the tip of his flute on
which he plays a quite different melody, just before Pulu bursts
in on his life.

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