Rays of Hope and Despair

Ray scholars have pointed out that his films portray the history of modern India from an
enlightened liberal’s perspective. Born in early 1920s, Ray’s youth was spent amidst the
turbulence and clamour of nationalist movement, Bengal famine, the trauma of partition,
the bloody communal riots and massive displacement of people, while in his middle ages he
witnessed the rise of Naxalite movement, Emergency and the violent protests by the youth
on the streets of Calcutta and the encounter killings that followed it. But throughout his
career, but for very rare instances, Ray never expressed his political stands explicitly or
publicly. Moreover, very few of his films – like, dealt with contemporary ‘political’ issues or
themes overtly References to extremist movement in the form of processions, graffiti,
dialogues recur in his Calcutta films, while in films like Ghare Bhaire, Shatranj ke Khiladi etc
political turmoils constitute the narrative background and define the inner and outer nature
of the characters.

The evolution and ruptures in Ray’s changing social imagination and political vision can be
traced along the evolution of Ray narratives and his protagonists. Ray was a staunch admirer
of Nehru’s nationalist imagination and modernising mission. In his cosmopolitanism and
eclectic outlook he was also a Tagorean. This is how Ray explains these influences: “I
understood him (Nehru) better, because I am also in a way a kind of product of East and
West. A certain liberalism, a certain awareness of Western values and a fusion of Eastern
and Western values was in Nehru … I always understood what Nehru was doing, as I
understood what Tagore was doing – because you can’t leave Tagore out of this, it’s a
triangle.”

The three trilogies in the 1950’s, 70’s and 90’s, or at the beginning, middle and end of his
oeuvre – the Apu trilogy: Pather Panchali (1955), Aparajito (1956) and Apur Sansar (1959);
Calcutta trilogy: Pratidwandi (1970), Seemabaddha (1971) and Jana Aranya (1975), and the
last trilogy: Ganashatru (1989), Shakho Prosakha (1990) and Agantuk (1991) – mark three
periods in his creative life and the transformations in his engagements with the idea of
India. It is a journey from youthful innocence and hope of the post-Independence decades,
through despairing confrontations and compromises with establishments and mores in the
70’s, to a deep despair about degeneration at all levels by the 1990s.

Apu Trilogy - Innocence and Hope

Let us recall some iconic scenes from this trilogy: in Pather Panchali, Apu and Durga running
through the kash grass thicket at the edge of their village to see the passing train; a night
scene where Harihar, sitting on the veranda of their hut with a bunch of manuscripts,
teaching his son Apu his first lessons; in Aparajito the adolescent Apu, who is now a village
priest peeping from behind a tree at children of his age rushing to the school; a little time
later, Apu proudly looking at the sun dial he has made; in Apur Sansar where we see Apu
reciting poetry and talking about the autobiographical novel he is writing to his bosom
friend Pulu as they along city streets at night; and the final scene of where Apu striding
forward with his young son Kajol on his shoulders to an uncertain but hopeful future that
awaits them somewhere out there. All the three films in the trilogy end with departures:
Harihar and family leaving Nischindipur for Benares, Apu, after the death of his mother,
leaving his village home to Calcutta; and finally, Apu reclaiming his son and beginning a new
journey in his life.

In this trilogy of Apu’s coming of age, he goes through several tragedies and struggles – the
death of those dear to him, the family’s poverty and their painful departure from the village,
the his father’s death in Benares and his mother’s struggle to survive, later his own struggles
as a working student in Calcutta, and the sudden and untimely demise of his young wife and
his running away from the city. Despite all these, there is an overwhelming atmosphere of
hope and optimism that linger throughout the trilogy. All the tragic things that happen are
only parts of the larger scheme of Apu’s journey through life and his ever-expanding world.
He is always open to the world, impervious to or almost welcoming its umpteen
uncertainties and accidents. Significantly, it is Apu’s innocent eye that we see first, as he
peers through the tear in the blanket (earlier, we only see him in a cradle, put to sleep by
Indir). It also turns out to be his first day at school.

So, even when tragedies strike, the world is open and inviting, always offering new
opportunities and trajectories to move on. We always see him yearning for something
higher and beyond, something sublime and transcendental – in his thoughts, relationships
and through his writing. Though the world he inhabits is poor, petty and small, he lives in a
expansive world of imagination and daydreaming; there is always a world beyond to take
refuge in, journey to, find solace in. The sun dial he makes with his name and the globe he
receives as prize from the school – they represent time and space/world: his keen
awareness about the passage of one, and his endless curiosity about the other.

Through the Apu trilogy, we see his world – physical, emotional and intellectual –
expanding. His family moves from the remote Nischindipur village to the holy city of
Benares, and after his father’s death back again to his maternal uncle’s village. The passion
for learning takes him from there to Calcutta; at the death of his wife he leaves the city
along with everything he held dear to a mining district faraway. In the end, we see him
come back to claim his son, and finally striding forward with his son on his shoulders, to
rebuild his life all over again. (In the novel, Apu continues his journeys)

Calcutta Trilogy - Confrontations and Compromises

“The Calcutta trilogy.. chronicle the moral and spiritual collapse of this new urban India. For
Nehru, it was the city, more than anything else, that stood for India’s future and the growth
of its modernity. The trilogy will show the betrayal of that dream and the death of a whole
cultural ethos” (Suranjan Ganguly, p 114)

Siddhartha of Pratidwandi is a medical college dropout, who is torn between emotional,

economic and ideological conflicts. Within the family, friendships or love relationship, he is
not able to live up or live in and remains indecisive. Though he fumes against the injustices
around him, he is not able to find philosophical, emotional or political alliances to act or
react against it. The film ends in an enigmatically ambivalent manner, where childhood and
death, nostalgia and sense of realism, are evoked: Siddhartha leaves the city for a faraway
town, where he hears the bird call of his childhood after a long time, while witnessing a
funeral procession. It could also be the moment of liberation or redemption for him when
he finally buries his Father and becomes an individual on his own: if the opening sequences
of his real father’s burial is in negative, in the final scene he is witness to another funeral but
this time from above and away. Like the eponymous Siddhartha, he is finally liberated from
one cycle of or in life, or turns a leaf, as is indicated by the voice-over where he signs off the
letter to his love.

Unlike Siddhartha, the protagonist of Seemabaddha is one who has overcome all such moral
qualms. The city of Calcutta in fact prods and fertilizes the ‘unlimited’ ambitions of
Shyamalendu, a young man from a small town. In his pursuit of a life of comfort and luxury,
everything else – values, ethics and justice – become seconday. At the end of the film, we
see a pensive Shyamalendu, who, in a flashing moment, realizes that he has sacrificed his
soul to achieve success. But he has already travelled too far to make any amends. He also
knows he has lost Tutul - his sister-in-law and muse, who represents his innocent and
idealist past - forever.

In Jana Aranya, the fall of the middleclass protagonist is all the more tragic and stark.
According to Chidananda Dasgupta, “Jana Aranya epitomizes not only the mood of the
seventies, but the failure of earlier values celebrated in so many of Ray’s films.” (p 106). As
the protagonist’s father at one point says, ‘If a young man does not find a job, he can only
become a revolutionary or go to the dogs’. For, Somnath becoming a revolutionary is out of
question, nor does he want to live a life of poverty. He chooses the middle path, by
becoming a middleman who is ready to sell anything to earn his commission. The city and its
tentacles of corruption embrace him, and it is a journey where there is no looking back. As
Dasgupta says, one cannot miss the ominous resonances the Tagore song in the film,
‘Darkness is gathering over the forest’.

In all the three films, the city of Calcutta throbs in all its sprawling ugliness and melancholic
beauty. “Ray’s repeated effort to come to terms with the new post-Tagore, post-
Independence generation.. reaches its peak in Jana Aranya. There is now a determined
attempt to come face to face with the reality of the times, without hesitation or
obliqueness. For the first time Calcutta comes to life. Its grime and dirt are established.. The
crowds are seen not from above as in Pratidwandi, but at eye-level.” (Dasgupta, ibid). For
Ray, Calcutta was the most stimulating city in the world, where he prefers to stay, that is,
“right in the present, in the heart of this monstrous, teeming, bewildering city, and try to
orchestrate its dizzying contrasts of sight and sound and milieu”

The Last Trilogy – Decadence and Despair

In all the last three films, at the centre of the narrative are very crucial social and political
issues that point to both the predicament of the society as well as of the individuals who
constitute it – it relates both to ethical, social as well as political ecologies. Environmental
degradation, loss of scientific temper, rise of communalism and obscurantism, the nexus
between politics and money power, the erosion of larger visions about life and culture, the
withdrawal of individuals into their own petty worlds and interests, and an alarming
disconnect with time and space, history and culture..
In Ganashatru Dr Ashoke Gupta fights a despairing battle against the rising forces of
obscurantism and superstition, which are in collusion with communal, economic and media
interests to pollute the environment, loot the people and control public opinion. As he fights
these dark forces, the network of degeneration and corruption that afflicts society gets
revealed. At the fag end of his life, he is alone with only a few rays of hope around him.

Shakha Prosakha takes this theme to a more personal and intense level. According to
Gaston Roberge, if Ganashatru dealt with the external environment, Shakha Prosakha deals
with the internal environment of the men and women of our times. As the family gathering
progresses, we become privy to the compromises and corruption in the life of the brothers.
In a world where money has become the measure of all things, the conscientious ones, like
Proshantho and Protap, have either resigned from society or withdrawn into a world of their
own.

In all the three films an atmosphere of despair and degeneration pervades, and the
glimmers of hope are present though feeble and far between. The younger brother in SP,
the young journalist and Aloke’s daughter in GS, and Mitra’s niece who joins the tribal
dance, all represent the rays of hope amidst the overwhelming gloom.

Agantuk, which many consider as Ray’s swansong, is about returns of many kinds, that of
the return of the epic hero, the return to one’s home, town, culture and also roots.
Manmohan Mitra is someone who is returning to the city of birth after travelling all over the
world. His encounters in his niece’s home turns into a series of tests of identity as well as an
incisive stocktaking by Mitra about the illustrious city and the culture it boasts of. At another
level, there is also mention about the cave drawing of the bison at Altamira, the primal
wonder about lunar eclipse, his wanderings amidst primeval tribes in various continents etc
that indicate his personal journey in search of meaning and essence of humanity.
Significantly, in the end, not feeling at home in the house, he leaves it and seeks refuge in a
santhal village, which is yet another suggestion of return to primal sources, to the very
beginnings of humanity.

..
If the making of Apu trilogy succeeded the experiences of nationalist movement,
Independence, Famine and Partition, Calcutta trilogy was made in the period of Bangladesh
war and the influx of refugees, national Emergency and the police repression, the rise of
Naxalite movement and the spate of violence that accompanied it, growing unemployment
and large-scale political corruption. The last trilogy was made at another critical juncture in
the nation’s history – the announcement of New Economic Policies and the shift to
globalization and privatization, and the rising tide of communal politics and its culmination
in the demotion of Babri Masjid.

If we find an adolescent Apu growing up to become a youth in the first trilogy, the
protagonists of Calcutta films are all young men trying to find their foot in the city. In the
last trilogy, all the protagonists are old, infirm and at the fag end of their careers. These
films, in a way, looks back, and takes stock. If it is all about movements in and exploration of
the world for Apu, the protagonists of Calcutta trilogy are caught in the web of the city,
unable either to effectively confront or happily inhabit it. In the last trilogy, all the exciting
journeys seems to have come to an end, and it is all about ruminations about the past or
introspection about the present. The age of the characters too shifts from adolescence and
youth to middle and old age. As the central character/s grow older, wiser and ‘worldlier’,
we see a certain sense of despair about the world permeating it – of promises betrayed,
dreams gone awry.

What makes Ray’s engagements heart-wrenching is that it doesn’t offer easy diagnosis or
solutions, but is equally trenchant in its critique of the Home and the World, the individual
and society. Even while his films dwell upon the rottenness of the world, it is equally or
more concerned with what is rotting within. In Agantuk, Manomohan Mitra, the world-
traveler and scholar of human civilizations, warns his young nephew Satyaki never to
become a ‘koop manduk’ (frog in the well). An advice that our nation direly needs to listen
to now. Maybe this is one message of Ray that is all the more relevant now: the importance
of being a critical insider who is open to the world, while being deeply aware of one’s own
history and tradition, the importance of connecting with one’s roots while spreading one’s
branches to the sky and shade