Page 22 - THE CHANGING WORLD OF RAY

elder, a Hindu priest and vision depicts the moment

an ascetic, an image of a of his self-realization and

young man wearing make enlightenment, the moment

up, dancers, another ascetic of ‘individuation’ in Jung’s

in make-up holding a cheap terms, referring to the pro-

paper reproduction of Shi- cess by which one becomes

va’s/ Poseidon’s triton, other ‘“an in-dividual”, that is, a
dancers jumping and danc- separate indivisible unity

ing in exuberance, an image or “whole”’ (CW Vol.9 Part

of a voodoo priest drinking I: 275). In the end, Siddhar-

from a bottle, an image of an tha realizes his dream and

old lady begging, and more abandons the city for the

images of exuberant danc- countryside, which is a move
ers moving without rhythm, that echoes a general feeling

without aim, without rea- of disillusionment that insti-

son. This is the exact vi- gated a process of ‘decentral-

sion, a grotesque stereotype ization’ in India (see Brass

of modernity, that Charu 1989: 223-264).

in Charulata, and Arati in `In my recent trip to Kath-
Mahanagar (Big City 1963) mandu in April 2012, after

also share [see Sequence I managed to break out of

3.2 ‘Charu’s Vision’ in Ap- the sacred Hanuman-dko-

pendix). The second part of ka Durbar Square, a ‘World

Siddhartha’s vision slowly heritage Site’, in which the

superimposes into the calm Khumari, an eight year old

and lyrical view of the sea girl is exhibited to tourists
horizon, and then the coun- as the ‘living goddess’ (as

tryside, the place where Sid- in Ray’s Devi), I saw anoth-

dhartha (and through him of er Kathmandu burning in

India) yearns to ‘return’; the anger. Daily protests fre-

forest of Pather Panchali. As quently take place, as in a

in Ray’s previous films Devi, majority of young people call

Charulata, and Mahanagar, for a more democratic sys-
in Pratidwandi, Siddhartha’s tem, but instead, they are