Page 43 - The Apu Trilogy_ Satyajit Ray and the Making of an Epic

30 The Apu Trilogy

‘In his novels he showed an astonishing capacity for detailed
observation of both nature and human character, combined with
great humour and tenderness in describing what his observa-
tion discovered’, said the writer Nirad C. Chaudhuri, an exact-
ing literary critic and a contemporary in age, who became a
close friend of Banerji at this time and helped him to get his
novel published in both serial and book form. ‘His hard life had
not embittered him, nor made him a cynic. His sympathy for
ordinary people was unlimited, and he was not repelled even
by the squalor in which such people had to live in our society.
Somehow, he could always make them rise above their sur-
roundings; I would even say – far above the limitations of their
world.’ In Banerji’s personal life, however, Chaudhuri admitted,
‘I saw often that he could be totally indifferent even to those
very near him. It may have come from his intensely egocentric
nature or from the first sorrow of his life which made him grow
a protective callousness.’ This callousness is reflected in Apu’s

Pather Panchali: Apu

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