Revisiting Rays: Pather Panchali, A Violent Movie

I know a boy whose name is Bodhibrata.   He was in standard nine in a school when he chanced to watch ‘Pather Panchali’ or ‘Songs of the Road’ for the first time. Pather Panchali was the first venture of Satyajit Ray as a film-maker.

 The film has been based on a popular Bengali novel of the same name. I have seen the boy sobbing incessantly while watching the film. People of Bengal are very tender at the heart and they usually wet the handkerchief when they encounter any sad spectacle. I do not know if people in other countries have the same kind of disposition. I remember the boy as he has told me a different story on the film. When inquired what has made him shed tears such profusely, Bodhibrata has answered: What a violent film!

Pather Panchali is a very important Bengali novel. This novel has immortalized Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay. The novel tells the story of a little boy and of a remote village. It is the story of a time when the telegraph and railway have been introduced in India. Presumably the time relates to the late British rule in India. The story also meanders round a home-maker woman and her silent struggle against immeasurable poverty. Her husband is a jobless person. His source of income is priesthood in the village. He is very simple and he does not find an alternative way to remove poverty. In this family there is also a little girl. She is senior to the little boy. She is actually his elder sister. One day she had a fever and she received no treatment and medicine practically and she died. To the close of the novel the family is found leaving the village in search of a different destination.

 The film, ‘Songs of the Road’, has immortalized Ray. Ray is the first recognized champion among the Indian movie-makers. He has received international reputation for this debut film. He has made more films and has been awarded Oscar for lifetime achievement before his death.

 Pather Panchali is really a very good film. The film contains elements of Ray’s talent. In his later life Ray has expressed dissatisfaction on the making of the film. He has noticed some shortcomings in it. Still this is the first proud face of the Indian movie. But this movie has invited criticism from the higher echelons of the Indian film world. Nargis, the veteran actress of the Mumbai-based Indian movies, has alleged that Ray has sold the poverty of India in his film. Such a comment from Nargis came when she was a responsible member of the Indian Parliament. The same criticism is in the air now with the Oscar-awarded British movie ‘Slumdog Millionaire’. I must say that ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ should not be compared with Ray’s ‘Pather Panchali’.

I love to remember the boy instead. I remember him because he has reached to an important point of concern. Poverty is replete with this film and Ray has inclined to state that living is really glorious. Poverty in this film means abject poverty. But the little kid Apu has his world of joy and wonder. He has his own world which he reconstructs every day. One thing is still missing in the village named ‘Nischintipur’ (the term ‘Nischintipur’ means an abode where anxiety is absent). There is no ruler and no landlord in this film and there is none even to collect annual duties or to maintain law and orders. There are no security personnel and the slogans against the British Empire have not reached this village. This is painful to believe. This is a village where postman sometimes visits and Apu waits for a newspaper. We even find a village school master and also a person who is a regular traveler.

The film ends with some shots showing that the family of the three is leaving the village silently. The family of the three is leaving the village and recalling the days elapsed there and recalling the hapless girl Durga who had succumbed to the devastating burnt of poverty. It is a matter of surprise that this family has been migrating leaving behind some ancestral land. Nobody has asked or ordered them to evacuate or nobody has thrashed them or driven them out. How funny it is if we are to accept that nobody is responsible for this great human tragedy! The greatest limitation of the film lies in the fact that we have been disallowed to view the ugliest face of violence behind this noiseless shedding of tears.