Page 157 - The Apu Trilogy_ Satyajit Ray and the Making of an Epic

144 The Apu Trilogy

Yet, against Apu’s will, seeing and hearing Pulu after an age
has churned him. The village section at the end of the film in
which Apu at last returns to the place of his wedding to see
Kajal for the first time is marvellous in its deployment of the
total resources of cinema. It comprises the most emotionally sat-
urated scenes in Ray’s entire oeuvre, bearing the full history of
Apu’s life and struggle up to this point. As he sits upstairs in his
father-in-law’s house watching the little boy who does not know
him asleep on the bed, the boatmen’s songs again drift in off
the river; we cannot help but think of another occasion in this
same room. Then, Aparna’s devotion penetrated Apu’s protec-
tive shell. Can her child now do the same, and displace the icon
of his dead mother that Apu has preserved in his heart?
The boy’s rejection of this unkempt stranger is at first total;
Apu’s every attempt at friendliness is rebuffed. When he claims
that he is Kajal’s father, the boy actually throws a stone at him.
Only when, without thinking, Apu goes to Kajal’s rescue as his
irascible grandfather is about to punish the boy by beating him
with his heavy stick, is a spark of trust ignited for a moment.
But it does not catch fire. And then, as Apu sets off alone along
the riverbank leaving Kajal behind, it becomes a flame. Like his
friend Pulu, who in more or less the same spot requested him to
marry Aparna and was at first refused outright, Apu has given
up on Kajal. But Kajal, with a child’s instinct, has decided to
trust this bearded man and follows behind him as he departs.
‘Will you take me to my father?’ he calls out. ‘Will my father
be cross with me?’ ‘He won’t leave me and go away?’ Then,
finally, the hardest question: ‘Who are you?’ Apu replies, with a
tremor of hesitation: ‘I’m your – friend. Will you come with me?’
Watched by his grandfather in the distance, the boy runs to Apu
and is swept up in his arms to the piercing notes of a high tar-
shehnai, heard only once before in the Trilogy, when Apu’s par-
ents, Harihar and Sarbajaya, wept over the death of Durga. It is
as if the love that was snuffed out then has, after long years, been
rekindled. Through Kajal, Apu has transcended his grief at last

9/16/2010 9:09:21 PM
Robinson_Ch07.indd 144 9/16/2010 9:09:21 PM
Robinson_Ch07.indd 144