Page 82 - The Apu Trilogy_ Satyajit Ray and the Making of an Epic

An Epic in Production 69

Dey transcribing the composer’s ideas into Indian notation and
dealing out the foolscap sheets to the tense handful who had to
keep plucking and bowing and thumping with scarcely a breath-
ing space.’ Shankar also composed two solo sitar pieces: a life-
affirming one in raga Desh which is conventionally associated
with the rains, and a sombre piece in raga Todi to follow Durga’s
death in the storm.
The high notes of the tarshehnai played when Sarbajaya bursts
out in grief on the return of Harihar to their house were played
by Daksinaranjan Tagore in raga Patdeep, chosen by Shankar.
‘When we started recording,’ remembered Ray, ‘I kept signalling
to Daksinaranjan to stay with high notes. When I got the length
I wanted, I signalled to him to stop.’ One or two other pieces
had to be chosen by Ray after Shankar had departed. The comic
twanging that so perfectly accompanies the stocky sweet-seller
and his yoked sweet-pots, pursued by the hopeful children and
the dog, was made by an ektara played by a refugee from East
Bengal; the composition was by the cameraman Mitra, who also
played the sitar elsewhere on the soundtrack.
‘The effort to catch the Museum’s deadline took on epic
proportions, and my editor and I were done up to a frazzle by
the end’, wrote Ray. ‘What turned out to be a real nightmare
was the mixing of the scene in which Durga lies critically ill
while a storm rages outside.’ The sound effects included thun-
der, rain, wind, rattling doors and windows, Durga’s moans, and
Sarbajaya’s desperate efforts to drag a trunk across the floor to
stop the door flying open. ‘The first attempt to mix the sounds
drove us to the limits of despair. The sounds that were literally
disjointed worked against and ruined the visuals which looked
pure when seen without sound.’ Ray’s solution was to use con-
tinuous loops of sound effects – the banging of a door, falling
rain, a thunder clap – the last of which had to be carefully timed
to fit the flashes of lightning on the screen. ‘It took until three in
the morning to get the right effect. Most of the crew had fallen
asleep by then except myself and the editor.’

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