Pather Panchali

Recently, I’ve become a fan of films that are freed from the shackles of a plot. The Wild Pear Tree, which I reviewed last month, was one of those. There was no significant plot to be progressed, it was merely a peek into the psyche of a character who isn’t too far-removed from myself; his anxieties, insecurities, fears, frustrations. Through recording his conversations with those around him, and his subtle facial expressions and constant changes in tone, we could come to understand this man and his situation far better than if there was a clear plot with dramatic tension needing to be resolved.

Dramatic tension is, in most cases, a fabrication; real life is rarely that simple, where we know we have to finish a task, we know what we are up against, and we struggle against forces to accomplish said task. Our world is a lot messier; our challenges simply tend to weigh down on us rather than spring us into action, they tend to be invisible, sometimes manifesting only in the subtly condescending glances of others or the friction that comes with bureaucracy. There is no melodrama there, no inspirational music, no flowing tears. Simply the unberable weight and frustration of life.

One of the movies that shows life as it is is Satyajit Ray’s directorial debut, Pather Panchali. It takes you to the village of Nishindipur in the Bengal region. It is a world that has since been lost to time; the film is set in 1955, when industrialisation was beginning to sweep across the newly-independent India. Naturally, a tiny village like Nishindipur has not faced it, but it is coming. It is on the way, whether you like it or not.

The film follows the family of a priest called Harihar Ray, a man with lofty artistic aspirations of being a playwright. His talk about writing original scripts and getting critical acclaim are contrasted against his low-paying job as a priest, one where he cannot even get his backdated wages (either due to his meekness or factors beyond his control). In spite of all that, however, he always carries himself with a patient, accepting smile; one that belies his family’s extreme poverty. Even at the very end of the movie, when he has faced unspeakable devastation, when he looks at his worm-eaten manuscripts – a ledger of his failure – he cannot resist a rueful smile, looking at the irony of life. (Is it merely a coincidence that he shares a last name with the film’s director?)

Harihar’s wife, Sharbajaya, is much less cheerful. She is the long-suffering woman of the family, and always carries herself with a tinge of sadness in her eyes. She seems to be Harihar Ray at a more advanced stage, where the difficulties of life can no longer be laughed at. She has to care for her daughter Durga and son Apu. Durga has developed a bad habit of stealing from others, specifically the guavas in her neighbour’s garden (once a property of Harihar Ray that he had to sell to settle a debt), one that she does not stop in spite of her mother’s insistence. And for this Sharbajaya is slandered and badmouthed by the neighbours as a bad mother who cannot raise her children.

There is a scene where Durga is accused of stealing her friend’s (the daughter of the neighbour) beads. The neighbour angrily confronts Sharbajaya, and after she leaves, she drags her daughter by the hair out of the house. Durga (who denies the allegation) cries as she walks into the forest. On the other side of the wall, in the same shot, Sharbajaya’s intense fury suddenly gives way to tears of her own, as she collapses onto the floor. The thousands of little invisible pressures have taken their toll upon her soul.

Apu, the family’s youngest and the subject of two other films (Ray’s three films Pather Panchali, Aparajito, and Apur Sansar are collectively known as the Apu trilogy), is the lens through which we view the film. Just like us, he is new to this village, new to this way of life (we literally see a scene of his birth). His childhood joys are shared with the viewer. We see Apu and Durga grow up through various vignettes; we see them chasing each other through the forest, getting excited for the arrival of a sweet-seller, wetting their hair in the rain, watching plays of epics and most poignantly, going into a field of lalang flowers to hear the sound of the oncoming train, the very first scene in Satyajit Ray’s illustrious career. Coupled with Ravi Shankar’s sitar music, these moments give us a sense of bliss; suddenly, the problems endured by the Ray family take on a meaninglessness, as the simple joys of seeing raindrops on the pond, or going on picnics in the forest, come to the fore.

Durga is someone that Apu can relate to; while he is too young to comprehend his family’s poverty, he can clearly see what happens to his sister. At the end of the film, he has lost his innocence, the childlike wonder in his eyes has gone. He has seen the horrors of rural life.

But the most important character in the story is not any of the family members; it is the environment itself. Just like in a Nuri Bilge Ceylan movie, the setting seems to be at the forefront of *Pather Panchali. It is the forest looming over the village, with its annual monsoon rains, that dominates the lives of the characters that live in it. The major events and tragedies facing the family are not borne of man, but of nature itself. One could almost say that this movie is a fable, a tale woven into the fabric of the endless Bengal rainforest.

Speaking of tragedy…

Durga, Apu’s sister, dies in Pather Panchali. The annual monsoons that batter the Bengal region proved too much for an insignificant hut in the woods, and they take Durga’s life. She had already gotten sick from wetting her hair in the rain earlier, and just as her malnourished body was recovering, a horrible torrent destroys the house, worsening the (I assume) pneumonia. This is the climax of the movie, and there are 2 scenes of pure genius that have been etched in my brain ever since I watched them. I highly recommend you watch the movie before reading further.

Firstly, during the storm. It starts simple, with the fluttering of a curtain in the wind. The horrifying, guttural screams of the wind begin to creep in.

Then, the flimsy wooden front door begins to throttle violently. The fury and the forces of nature throw themselves at this tiny hut, wresting it apart, toying with Sharbajaya. She runs frantically across the house trying to put things in order, like a game of Whack-a-Mole played against God for your survival. In the end, the door gives way and a blast of wind surges into the house. God has won. Sharbajaya is helpless. She can only clutch her daughter and pray. The camera zooms in on the small Ganesha statue, itself quaking in the wind.

Secondly, the moment that makes me weep every time. At this point in the film, Harihar Ray has left the village in search of employment, and he has gotten it. He returns to the village triumphant, unaware of his daughter’s demise.

First, he sees the ruins, the devasation that Nature has brought upon his house. No big deal; he has the money for the long-awaited repairs. “Couldnt this have happened just a bit later?” he jokingly remarks. Then, he sees his wife, sorrow written all over her face. But he doesn’t get the hint; he asks if Apu and Durga are out playing in the forest.

No response.

Harihar Ray brings out the spoils of his 6 months in the city; the items that the family requested. A glass-palated image of Goddess Lakshmi. As he gleefuly tells his wife about these, revelling in his long-awaited success, she can’t even make eye contact with him.

Throughout this scene so far, there is no music. The film is unflinching in its commitment; it will show you life as it is, unadorned, unaccompanied by easy emotional cues.

Then, he brings out a saree for his dead daughter. As he takes it out of the bag, it brushes a little against Sharbajaya’s arm. The pain is too much to bear.

Now the sad music floods in. Sharbajaya collapses onto the floor in a heap, and the tears flow out of hers. As Harihar understands why and the horror sets in his face, they begin flowing out of ours too.

Indian cinema loves melodrama. It loves exaggeration and theatricality. Our current Tamil “social dramas” feel quite manipulative, with images of crying children and families used as a easy, cheap, reproducible way of getting us to feel sad, even if that we forget that sadness the moment we leave the cinema.

In contrast, what Pather Panchali does is genius. It takes the tragedy and says, *hold*. It drags out the inevitable reveal, it weighs heavily on us with dramatic irony. By doing nothing and pretending things are normal, it ratchets the tension beyond 11. And in one moment, it releases the emotion on you like an avalanche. It does not reach out for your attention; instead it invites you in, it draws you into the story, and then hits you like a train.

The result is a film that is beautiful and a film that is, deservedly, one of India’s finest.

-Karthik Baskar