Page 4 - THE CHANGING WORLD OF RAY

ing polished shoes, but has He is the caricature

no etiquette manners. At of the lost ‘anthropologist’,

‘home’ nobody remembers a modern Odysseus return-

or recognizes him, and he ing to his long-forgotten and

is treated suspiciously even unrecognizable Ithaca. This

by his own family. Following caricature is never confirmed

the constant or renounced,
interrogation but through-

by his niece out the film

Anila (played the Stranger

by Mamata remains an am-

Shankar), biguous, lim-

and her suspi- inoid persona,
cious husband in-between the

Sudhindra unrecognizable

(Deepankar ‘home’ and the

Dey), the un- ‘world’. Only in

cle explains the end of the

his long ab- film, he final-
sence by por- ly rests in the

traying his back garden,

outcast condition as that of the only space that survived

an ‘anthropologist’. He dis- the rapid changes that took

appeared for four decades place during his absence.

because he wanted to sat- Just like a Buddha, the

isfy his curiosity about the Stranger finally finds rest
world: first, in terms of un- under the tree of knowledge

derstanding what is thought and wisdom.

to be ‘primitive’ and ‘civi- This anthropological calling

lized’; and second, to satisfy in many ways also refers to

his ‘wanderlust’, the urge to the auteur himself. The four

travel, to learn, and to ques- decades of the uncle’s ab-

tion. sence echo the four decades
of the director’s work. For