[Warning: long post]
“Taare Zamein Par” won’t be bringing the Oscars to India. Not that we uber-nationalists need to worry—”Slumdog Millionaire” will be winning many and “do India proud”. Coming back to TZP, I cannot say that it deserved to be nominated as I have not seen any of the movies that edged it out. However I can say that I thought it was an exceptional bit of work from mainstream commercial Bollywood, not because of the noble “message” or because of the story but because of its immensely cinematic first half where we are provided a beautiful insight into the world of a child, as he skips out of school and wonders on the small wonders of the world like the glories of paint mixing and the other small miracles we adults no longer are moved by.What it was perhaps missing was a bit of Indian exotica or a bit of the old sweat-and-dung-and-heat kind of muskiness that defines the sub-continetal cinematic experience—the Darsheel character’s dyslexia was fine and all but if he only had leprosy along with it, TZP would have been a “celebration of the wonder that is India”. Perhaps.
Continue reading ‘Of Ray and Boyle’
Apur Sansar is known as “The World of Apu” in English.
What is lost in translation is the duality of the word “Sansar” in Bengali—-it means both family as well as world.
Apu’s detachment from Nature is now complete—–the movie starts with him residing in a dingy one-room near the train lines—-the same train, which symbolized the advent of the outside world in “Pather Panchali”, has by now totally lost its wonderment for Apu for whom the incessant cacophony is nothing but an irritant.
Continue reading ‘Apur Sansar’
“He is just like his father—-all crazy dreams and impractical schemes” says Sarbojaya about her son Apu to his uncle.
“Aparajito” (Unvanquished), the second part of the Apu Trilogy and thematically the most nuanced, is about Apu’s aspirations.
Apu is now in the cusp of boyhood and manhood–gawky, dissatisfied and increasingly feeling constricted by his rural surroundings. On one hand is the strong pull of tradition—–his mother and his elders want him to continue the family profession of priesthood and stay in the village. And on the other hand is the desire to break free.
Continue reading ‘Aparajito’
People often approached Rabindranath Tagore to name their sons and daughters——-while doing so, he would also compose a Haiku-type “dedication” to the new born.
One of the babies he “christened” was Satyajit Ray and what he composed for Ray is instantly recognizable as one of Tagore’s most famous short poems (though not many know it was for Satyajit Ray).
Translated to English (for those who have read the original, forgive me for my purely functional non-poetic translation), it says:
” I have been gone everywhere, spent a lot of money—travelled to the mountains, seen the sea…….trying always to find beauty. I now realize that all the time I wandered the earth, I missed seeing the splendour that lay before me, just 2 steps from my door—–a dewdrop glistening on a blade of grass”.
If ever someone lived upto their “dedication” it was Satyajit Ray.
Continue reading ‘Pather Panchali—An Intensely Personal Review’
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