Class act

Pather Pancholi (Bengali, Song of the road 1955)
Director: Satyajit Ray

In a book I am currently reading on biographies of MK Gandhi and Winston Churchill, the author says that Bengalis (at least during Gandhi's era) had a chip over their shoulders. They thought that Bengal should be the cradle of Indian civilization after producing many literary figures, including Rabindranath Tagore, who received the Nobel prize with an almost 100% literacy rate in the state.

This film is further proof of this effect, a revolutionary movie, a deviant from your typical idea of how an Indian movie would be. Done on a shoestring budget, a relatively novice cast, minus the razzmatazz of glitz of affluence, depicting utter poverty without tear-jerking melodrama, it still managed to win our hearts and won many international accolades.

Durga passing stolen guava to grand aunt 

Impressed by Nehru (then the Prime Minister), who decided to nominate it to the Cannes film festival despite its depiction of abject poverty and misery, which was not the way to depict a newly independent country. Its movie-making manner was revolutionary, straying from the mainstream film of that era. Its storytelling is not straightforward but is disjointed. Viewers have to have to make their own conclusion as the film progresses.
In jest, it illustrates the fun of carefree growing up in the 1920s of Durga and her younger brother Appu.

There is also a love-hate relationship between their mother and the father's Auntie, a scary witch-like looking hunched back old lady. I was wondering how they got such a lady to act that role. Apparently, she was a down and out ex-actress staying in a brothel!

The story depicts an everyday life of a poor Brahmin family living on the edge of a jungle. Every day is a struggle. Even the dog and the cat, who appear to be living in a symbiotic relationship with them, appear lethargic, poor-spirited with sadness in their eyes. The father, a scholarly priest, survives by writing accounts and performing religious rituals for others.

As fish is a staple diet of the inhabitants of the Bay of Bengal, where the priest also consumes fish.
The film was shot when life was simple, greenery was lush, childhood was carefree, the highlight of the day was watching the daily mail train pass by and playing in the rain was fun!

 
This film is not by any standard a usual fare. The story is told in a patchy manner for viewers to grasp the essence of the story. The scene of a food vendor coming to the little village and typical nighttime in the household under the light from an oil lamp is memorable.

Leaving the curse of the ancestral home

The story sort of climaxes when the father goes on a long errand out of town. This brings some hardship to the family - Durga falls sick, the economic situation becomes worse supported by a rich neighbour and her family with whom they earlier had a tiff over stolen guavas and unsettled debts, and a storm hits the shabby shack which they call home.

After months, the father returns with gifts for the family, including a saree for Durga, only to find that Durga succumbed to her illness. The family decides to move to Benares lock, stock and barrel for a better life. Symbolically, a snake moves into their ancestral as the family heads to Benares. A class above the rest!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IF7TlxUUFsA

N.B. The director Satyajit Ray is held in high esteem by the film fraternity. Having been honoured many times, including a doctorate from Oxford, he received an honorary Oscar just before his death in 1992. The legendary director Akira Kurosawa quipped, "Not to have seen the cinema of Ray means existing in the world without seeing the sun or the moon."