Song of the Little Road



It's been more than 50 years since this movie is released. It has won countless international awards, hailed as the new face of Indian cienema and considered as one of the massive debuts in the film history. Outlook celebrated it's 50th year with a cover story. In a small measure, my friends and I did a screening of this movie on its anniversary day.

From Roger Ebert to Amitav Ghosh have written about it. But somehow, I always felt what is written about Pather Panchali is just not enough. So I decided to go with my single cent.

The motivation to write came when my Bhavan's classmate wanted to know 'Who the hell is this Ray' and I gave him the DVD. He sat on it for a few days before developing the courage to watch it. And once watched, he was spellbound. The movie swept him off and he was so mesmerised that he is still talking and messaging me about it. And now he has begun ransacking my Ray collection. Precisely at this juncture, I thought I must write about it.

Ebert used the word 'magical'. I guess that's about describes the film. Sadly, Pather Panchali stands far above the rest of the Indian trash that gets packaged as 'movies'. There's only one thing Pather Panchali failed to do. Inspire the rest of India to follow suit. If the rest of India, especially the Bollywood and the influential southern industries had travelled in the little road laid by Ray, Indian film industry would have become the most influential one in the world. Perhaps Satyajit Ray has set a huge quality parameter for the rest to scale.

But then such masters aren't born every year. Even in Bengal, the works of talented directors such as Rituparno or Gautam Ghosh hasn't reached even the surface of Ray's range.

The movie ran for 36 weeks in New York and was the longest running foriegn film there. From Ebert to Sridhar everyone could identify Harihar, Indir Takrun and the most energetic and enterprising, Durga. Yet, the movie is very Bengal and the spirit is very Indian. The poverty of Harihars never affects the joy and the playfulness of Durga and Apu. And there's never before in the Indian movie history one has seen a performance of Indir Takrun's magnitude. The ultra-thin sensitivity Ray so carefully weaves around the characters is so touching that you simply sit with an approving smile on your lips and (ironically) tears flowing in your eyes.

My favorite scene is where the Aunt Indir returns to Sarbajya's house after being abandoned by other cousin and Sarbajya, while having her lunch, yells at her to leave the house. When Indir requests that she drinks a litlle water before leaving, quietly ignores her presence while the Aunt fetches water from the pot. The empathy, anger, poverty, helplessness and old age is so intense and yet so sensitive that you pinch yourself to believe that you're watching an Indian film. Even in that moment of despair and hopelessness, Indir never forgets to water her favourite plant. That's movie making at its best.

Ravi Shankar's music, except interrupting immensely when Durga dies, is very subdued and very original. Considering that he composed the flute theme without even having seen the rushes speaks volumes of Ray's conviction.

Fifty years on, the film's magic has not waned. In my opinion, Pather Panchali, which means The Song of the Little Road, easily takes the No. 1 slot in the Indian top ten to become the greatest Indian movie ever made. Although I have not seen much of other Indian movies, I'm sure the movie justifies my arrogance.

If you're a film buff and have not yet seen Pather Panchali, you're missing something.