Thursday, May 02, 2013
Pather Panchali on Ray's Birth Anniversary
It’s Satyajit Ray’s birth anniversary today. I thought I’d
spend the day watching back-to-back Ray movies in his tribute. Since my husband
is an ardent Ray admirer, we have a collection of all his movies, documentaries
(whatever is available in the market, that is), books, short stories and
children’s writings. As I sat down to make my selection, I found myself
avoiding Pather Panchali — yet again.
Ever since it has graced my husband’s CD/DVD library, I know that I’ve never
opted to take it out and watch it. I usually end up selecting either
“Mahapurush” from Kapurush/Mahapurush,
Poroshpathor, Aranyer Din Ratri, Jalshaghar,
Jana Aranya or even Apur Sansar — but never Pather Panchali.
I began to wonder why I consistently avoid watching the
movie Ray is universally celebrated for. On the face of it, the most obvious
answer would be that it makes me sad — that against all my efforts at watching
it objectively as a student of world cinema, I end up crying uncontrollably. It
brings back ancient memories of watching my father cry when Durga’s father
learns of her death… I realised that my resistance to the movie went beyond the
layers of Ray’s artistic excellence and Bibhutibhushan’s evocative masterpiece.
Pather Panchali, I discovered, is tied up with my childhood memories of simpler
times; and of my brief but strong encounters with rural and semi-rural Bengal.
Pather Panchali evokes sights, sounds, odours and aromas
from a bygone era. It evokes the earthy smell of mud houses, of packed-earth
courtyards painstakingly cleaned and layered with wet clay and cow dung each
morning. The rickety cane-and-bamboo hedges that demarcated households, with
rickety gates of the same material that kept out no one but the neighbourhood
cow from munching at the tulsi shrines or the tiny kitchen plots resplendent
with green chilies, tomatoes, lime, flowering shrubs, and twining gourd or
pumpkin patches over the tiled cooking shed…
It brings back the taste of joint-family meals served on
banana leaves. The overwhelming joy of having been conferred the honour of
serving water along with a slice of lime and a pinch of salt at each place
setting for a festive occasion, as the adults took on the more onerous task of
serving the actual food out of huge brass buckets and cane baskets. That is how
it was at weddings too. No anonymous caterer or wedding planner, but familiar
household faces coaxed you to try another piece of machher kalia, another ladle
of mangsher jhol, a second helping of rosogolla and mishi doi — the menu may
have been plebian, but the hospitality came straight from the heart.
Pather Panchali evokes memories of habitual childhood
mischief, following which our band of naughty cousins would run off to hide
behind the berry shrubs by the communal pond, in the company of the village
ducks and their litany of waddling ducklings. It reminds me of the tangy taste
of sour mangoes and tamarind relished with salt and mustard oil — all the more
delicious because we were forbidden from stealing and eating them so. It brings
back the gentle voice of my grandmother telling me stories, as she would
struggle to put me to sleep in the afternoons. The soft touch of her simple
cotton sari, the jasmine and sandalwood smell of her, and her endless love. It
brings back the camphor-flavoured water she served in brass tumblers, with a
piece or two of sweet batasha…
Pather Panchali brings back the sights, sounds, odours and
aromas of a way of life that I cannot go back to. And as I realise this, I give
myself over to my grief with abandon. Have I been the better for having known a
gentler era that will never return? Or are today’s children better off for not
having known what cannot be bought for love or money?
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