WHEN YOU HAVE NOTHING, YOU HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE
The second part of the Apu Trilogy is when it finally earns that moniker. It is unfortunate that Pather Panchali gets subsumed under that name because it is a film about Durga, Sarbojaya, and Indir Thakrun more than it is about Apu.
This film (and the next even more so) sees life from the point of view of Apu and how events affect him. In many ways however it is a bridge film, functioning largely as a way to get from the first to the last part rather than possessing much independent narrative merit.
However, the film also depicts moments of significant transformation in the psyche of Apu without which he would not be one of the most compelling characters in world cinema. Some of these are acts of breath-taking boldness given the socio-cultural backdrop he comes from.
The Devil In Blind Faith
And what is this socio-cultural backdrop? Nothing quite captures it like the brief and less-than-wondrous appearance of Harihar in this film.
After moving the family to Benaras (also known as Kashi and Varanasi) he continues in his profession of priest. His earnings certainly improve as Benaras is a city entirely built to provide Hindu rituals for every stage in life, most prominently death rites and salvation rites for widows and other searching souls.
While they certainly seem to be better off as a family, and not least because they are lighter by two dependents, this profession is not like any other. The rigid, ritualistic lifestyle he follows as a member of the priestly caste leads him to risk his very life. After all, what can one do for someone who insists on walking down and up sixty-seventy stairs even when he is sick, just for his ritual ablutions, and even on his death bed ask for holy water instead of medical attention.
Blind faith and superstition are the enemy of good folk, and this is a theme Ray explores over and over in his movies. Apu needed a father, but his father needed Ganga-jal.
His mother too is part of this social order even though she may not have any agency herself. When it comes to life as a single mother, she cannot bring herself to be a wage-earner when she finds her son drifting away from his roots. Halfway through the film mother-and-son are back where they started – in a hovel in a village. Customary ways don’t liberate people from their shackles. They are the shackles.
The Re-Education Of Apu
It is in the second half of the film that we start to see the making of a rebel. Having faced death at close quarters for the third time in just over as many years, Apu is ready to question his path. Unfortunately for him, his mother still isn’t.
Once again, her vulnerable status makes her dependent on well-meaning relatives to support her until the time her son can take over. Sarbojaya is not a weak woman. She has borne the slings and arrows of fortune, she has fought off predatory men, she has supported an unrealistic husband, she has even worked for some weeks, yet none of these add up to her liberation. The world in those times (early twentieth century, according to the novel) was not a safe place for single women. In many places it still isn’t. There is safety in the old ways even if it means living in a cage.
But, Apu doesn’t want to be a caged bird when his heart wants to sing. He resists the demands to turn to his father’s profession and become a priest. Instead, he wants to go to school. The little money his mother had collected is put to good use. A woman with money can change destinies.
The money dwindles by the time Apu can go to college, but by then he has proved to be such a brilliant student that he earns a scholarship. Finally someone is breaking away from the cycle of misery, unchaining himself from the mast of a sinking ship. Apu moves to Calcutta where he enrols to study science. Apu can hear the music of his life beginning to play again.
Education as a liberator for the human mind was a subject very close to Ray’s heart. It reaches its crescendo in Hirak Rajar Deshe where, future Apu actor, Soumitra Chatterjee plays a village school-teacher who is also a literal freedom fighter.
From education comes knowledge, and from knowledge come good choices and freedom from exploitation – that is liberty. That is something nobody in his family before him had. Naturally, Apu had far better chances in life than his sister or mother, yet he deserves credit for being a restless soul who didn’t follow a set path or ignore practical realities. He saw his chance, he saw his talent, and he was bold enough to take a leap.
This is nothing short of an epochal shift in this soaring epic of one man.
The Past Is Better Left In The Past
For a trilogy that extracts so much emotional cost from its characters as well as viewers, this film and the next also sound the clarion call for anti-sentimentalism. That’s a difficult balance, and one that more often than not will fail. In fact, even repeat viewings of the films will fail to make clear that it is only with the refusal to attach ourselves to our past that we can become our fullest selves. This may not bother a film-maker like Ray who, as I’ve said before, is supremely confident of the silences and unspoken words he leaves lying around all his films.
Sarbojaya and Harihar hold on to the old ways; Durga and Indir Thakrun cannot escape what their status has decreed. Only Apu has both youth and social mobility (as a high-caste male) to break the cycle on his own terms. He makes his choices from a young age, after the death of his father, and the choice is to reject the past.
He will not become a priest. He will not stay in the village. He will not miss his exams. He will not be bound by guilt. His mother, though she does everything in her power to help her son on his journey, is less than convinced by his choices. Motherly love wins the day for Apu, but she cannot save herself. She demonstrates a very typical tendency of putting guilt on the child, even though the child is not irresponsible or unloving. Naturally, if her husband had been more pragmatic, she could have afforded some hope for her future.
If you sense some bitterness in my words, you are mistaken. In truth, it’s not bitterness but full-blown anger. To see how people throw away their lives with misplaced priorities, then to perpetuate an unjust reasoning on others, is just too frustrating. Every individual must have the emotional strength and maturity to test these beliefs and reject what makes their lot sadder. To me, Apu is the only character (and again, I acknowledge he has the benefit of choice that many others in his family didn’t) who makes a break from his past and can look ahead to a better future. His mother, forgive my tone, literally sits around till death comes for her.
Apu rejects the guilt that is directed at him one last time when an aged relative is shocked that he plans to return to Calcutta without performing his mother’s last rites. But he has his exam. His mother died so he could live. If he misses the exam, then even this final death will be as pointless as all the others. He knows what the right thing to do is. He has to go from darkness to light.
This rejection of guilt is remarkable for an Indian character where the influence of family and tradition are all-pervasive even today. Innumerable stories depict that it is the non-observation of these duties that lead to ruination. And yet we see here a person, even at his most vulnerable, taking it upon himself to change his destiny, relying on hard work and faith (not blind faith).
Aparajito is, to my mind, the weakest of the three Apu films. It has neither the melancholic melody of the first part, nor the narrative momentum of the third. (In honesty, I often found myself struggling to sit through it and really wished I could cut down the far-too-many times Sarbojaya called out “Apuuu, Apuuu.”) And yet, these films are such incredible human documents that even in this instalment there are times when the viewer will experience goose bumps.
To see Apu walk away from his mother’s home, not pausing for even one backwards glance is the one of the greatest depictions of human spirit and endurance you will ever see.