Ashani Sanket, 1973
[Distant Thunder]
In
1942, at the height of the Second World War, Japan, having successfully
secured and occupied Singapore, advanced the emperor's ambitious
military operation to India's neighboring country of Burma. In response
to the nation's aggressive Asian campaign, the British sought to
regain and reinforce strategic Allied positions in the Pacific by
stemming the tide of Japanese militarism, deploying troops to the
region and, with them, diverting resources from the populous imperial
colony. It is within the global uncertainty of this turbulent human
history that a well-respected, educated man, Gangacharan Chakravarti
(Soumitra Chatterjee) has decided to settle in a small, remote village
of Natungaon in Bengal with his attractive young wife Ananga (Babita).
As the only Brahmin residents in the entire rural village, Gangacharan
and his wife are in an opportune position to exploit the immeasurable
privileges afforded their socially prominent caste. To this end,
Gangacharan has decided to open the first elementary school in the
village in order to supplement his comfortable income as the only
doctor in the area, and to further take advantage of his fluency
in Sanskrit to serve as the town's ceremonial priest. His knowledge
of modern science and traditional ritual soon proves auspicious when
he is summoned to perform a sacred ceremony for a remote village
in the naive hope that his prayers would spare the townspeople from
a rampant outbreak of cholera that has already reached epidemic proportions
in a neighboring village. Dispensing practical advice on disinfection
and hygiene in an indigenously more palatable form of a mystical
protection ritual, the humble villagers spare no expense in expressing
their gratitude to the priest by showering him with a wagonload of
food and assorted presents for his trip home. However, traces of
the war's far-reaching effects into the lives of the unsuspecting
villagers begin to surface when Ananga is stopped on the roadside
by an indigent, elderly brahmin who begins to insinuate himself into the
deferential, younger brahmin's graces by soliciting handouts and
free meals on the pretense of visiting him to seek advice. As the
rice shortage leads to soaring inflation and widespread rationing,
the villagers soon resort to acts of self-denial, theft, banditry,
and even violence as austerity, want, and despair become inextricably
symptomatic of their increasingly subhuman daily existence.
Adapted from the novel by Bibhutibhushan
Banerjee, Distant Thunder is a provocative and compelling examination
of the devastating humanitarian crisis that resulted from the British
government's deliberate re-appropriation of food and critical supplies
to support the Pacific War campaign that lead to the man-made famine
of Bengal in 1943 and ultimately resulted in the death of over two
million people. From the opening image of a series of fighter planes
flying in formation as they cast a shadow on the river while Ananga
bathes (a curious sight that the heroine likens to a flock of cranes
in flight), Satyajit Ray presents an implicit (and figuratively obtrusive)
correlation, not only between a distant, foreign war and a politically
isolated (if not disenfranchised) domestic population, but more importantly,
the violation of nature through conceptually abstract, but integrally
man-made devices. Ray further illustrates the violation of nature,
not only through the repeated imagery of warplanes flying overhead
(a seeming metaphor for imperial sovereignty over their native land),
but also through anecdotal references to the skyrocketing price of
rice, the appearance of an inscrutable disfigured man near a pottery
kiln (whose scars were unintentionally self-induced - and therefore,
essentially man-made - resulting from accidentally exploded fireworks),
and escalating incidents of base human behavior. However, by focusing
on Gangacharan and Ananga's humbling plight and continued perseverance,
Ray transcends a purely social critique of the man-made famine in
favor of presenting the resulting social egalitarianism that eschews
class segregation in times of mutual hardship and common injustice.
In the end, it is overwhelming sense of human interconnectedness
that renews hope for the young, struggling couple: an enlightened
awareness and true sense of place borne of compassion, altruism,
sacrifice, and engaged social responsibility.
© Acquarello 2004. All rights reserved.
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A
young girl named Durga (Runki Banerjee) ventures into the neighbor's
orchard that was once owned by her family, and picks some guavas for
her great aunt, Indir (Chunibala Devi). The neighbors detect the incident,
and complain loudly of Durga's undisciplined behavior for her mother,
Sarbajaya (Karuna Banerjee) to overhear. Sarbajaya, in turn, scolds
Indir for encouraging Durga's behavior, and the infuriatingly stubborn
old woman packs her belongings and moves into the house of a nearby
relative. But all is quickly forgiven when Sarbajaya gives birth to
a son, Apu, and Indir returns home. The well-intentioned father, Hari
Ray (Kanu Banerjee), has uprooted his family from the city of Banaras
in order to follow in the footsteps of his ancestors - a long and
well respected lineage of scholars and spiritual leaders - and he
is determined to provide a good life for his family in his place of
birth. But the road proves to be a difficult one. The ancestral home
is in a state of disrepair. The family orchard has been relinquished
in order to settle his brother's debts. Hari's employment opportunities
are few and far between, and often involve spending long periods of
time away from his family. It is a hard existence for the Rays, but
one that is filled with love and a deep sense of loyalty to tradition
and family. Hari reassures Sarbajaya that his new job and his original
compositions will bring his family prosperity. However, years later,
little has changed. A young Apu (Subir Bannerjee) is sent to a village
school in order to learn the religious rites of his father's profession,
and Durga (Uma Das Gupta), approaching the age of marriage, continues
to smuggle fruit to her great aunt Indir. Sarbajaya believes that
the family should return to Banaras in order to have better opportunities,
and when tragedy strikes, the family makes the agonizing choice to
leave the beloved village.
The
people make their daily pilgrimage to the Ganges River: bathing
in its holy waters, filling their ceremonial vessels, attending
a reading of the scriptures by the entrance steps. The Ray family
has left their ancestral home (in 
Times
are hard in the city of Calcutta. Apu's (Soumitra Chatterjee) college
funds have run dry, and he is forced to suspend his university education.
After receiving a letter of introduction from a supportive professor,
Apu exits the faculty office only to walk into the chaos of a student
protest. It is a harbinger of his professional uncertainty. With
an intermediate college education and possessing few manual skills,
he is either overqualified (to paste labels on medicine bottles),
or underqualified (to teach grade school children) . But there is
hope. One of his stories has been accepted for publication, and
a career as a writer seems to have potential. One day, he is visited
by a college friend, Pulu (Swapan Mukherjee), who has been searching
for him around town in order to invite him to his cousin Aparna's
(Sharmila Tagore) wedding. Pulu has a job in mind for Apu, one that
uses his typing skills, but Apu is reluctant to settle into a life
of complacency with a "desk job". Apu reveals to Pulu that he has
been working on a novel about the saga of a poor village boy. Pulu
immediately recognizes the factual similarity to the author, but
teases Apu on his romantic qualifications for introducing a fictitious
"love interest" into the novel. Arriving to Khulna for the wedding,
the bride's mother (Sefalika Devi) is charmed by the handsome, mild-mannered
Apu, and flatters him with comparisons to the deity, Krishna. Secretly,
one can sense that she wishes that Aparna would marry Apu instead.
When the bridegroom unexpectedly arrives to the wedding in a state
of mental distress, the opportunity presents itself. The family
believes that Aparna will be cursed if she does not marry as planned,
and Apu is asked to act as a substitute bridegroom. Apu's marriage
to Aparna proves to be well suited, as the young couple settle into
a blissful domestic life. However, their happiness is truncated
when Aparna develops complications during childbirth. Unable to
reconcile with his profound grief, Apu abandons all responsibility
to wander the land in search of inner peace.
A
young girl named Bani (Jaya Bhaduri) diligently studies for her exams.
Her father, Subrata (Anil Chatterjee) asks, "Is it worth it?
You'll end up in the kitchen, like your mother." The words are
intended to be a playful tease, but they speak volumes about the role
of women in society. It is the early 1960s, and the concept of dual-income
families is still alien to most households, even in the big city of
Calcutta. But Subrata's income as a bank accountant is not enough
to support his extended family. His father (Haren Chatterjee), no
longer able to earn a living as a teacher, spends his days working
on crossword puzzles, hoping to win the prize money awarded for its
successful completion. He needs a new pair of eyeglasses, and keeps
reminding Subrata to call on an old pupil who is now a successful
optometrist in the hopes of obtaining his services for free.
Charulata
(Madhabi Mukherjee), or "Charu" as she is affectionately called,
lives the privileged life of the Bengali upper class in the late
nineteenth century. She is highly intelligent and creative, but
her social status limits her opportunities for personal growth,
and she is left with empty diversions that provide little challenge:
embroidering handkerchiefs, managing the servants, observing people
in the street through a pair of opera glasses. Her husband, Bhupati
(Shailen Mukherjee), an idealistic intellectual, is adoring and
supportive, but is consumed by the publication of his new political
newspaper - his "second wife" - and is unable to spend more time
at home to be with her. In a deceptively innocuous scene, Satyajit
Ray subtly exposes Bhupati's marital complacency when he literally
passes by Charulata twice without noticing her. Charulata, disappointed
by his unintentional snub, watches him walk down the hallway through
the opera glasses. The camera zooms out, as if to reflect the growing
distance between them. In an attempt to keep Charulata occupied,
Bhupati sends his sister-in-law, Manda (Gitali Roy), who is content
with passing the time by playing card games and engaging in idle
chatter. When Bhupati's younger cousin, Amal (Soumitra Chatterjee),
a recent college graduate and aspiring writer, comes to visit, Bhupati
enlists him to help cultivate Charulata's interest in literature.
Charulata has an immediate connection with Amal, seeing him as an
intellectual peer who shares a common love for the arts, and encourages
Amal to pursue his writing. The two become inseparable, spending
their afternoons in the garden - Amal writing in his journal, and
Charulata playing on the swing. In an understated, yet emotionally
revealing scene, Charulata teasingly spots a spelling error on Amal's
writing with her opera glasses, turns away to see a mother and child
at a window, then solemnly looks back to observe Amal's profile.
Figuratively, she sees Amal from a different perspective, and realizes
the impossibility of the situation.
Anila
Bose (Mamata Shankar) receives a curious letter sent from New Delhi,
affectionately referring to her as "baby", presumably from her uncle,
Manmohan Mitra (Utpal Dutt). Having left Calcutta immediately after
his graduation when Anila was only two years old, Manmohan is eager
to reunite with his sole surviving relative, imploring on her sense
of traditional Indian hospitality to receive him into their household.
Anila's husband Sudhindra (Depankar De) is skeptical of the upcoming
visit, convinced that the author's impeccable Bengali could not
possibly have been written by anyone who has spent the last 35
years traveling through Western countries as her uncle has reputed
to have done, and urges her to send a telegram immediately in order
to avert his intended visit under the pretense of leaving for a
family vacation. Yet despite Sudhindra's reservations, Anila is
intrigued by the possibility of meeting her long lost uncle, and
strikes a compromise with her husband to accept the stranger's
visit, and agrees to make an expedient assessment of his identity
and ulterior motive. However, Manmohan's charm proves to be infectious,
as Anila and her son Satyaki (Bikram Bhattacharya) soon find themselves
captivated by his cultural sophistication and congeniality. Sudhindra
returns home to find that Anila and Satyaki have already lost their
objectivity towards the charismatic stranger, but reserves judgment
on Manmohan's true identity until friends can surreptitiously question
him. However, when a pragmatic and discourteous associate named
Pritish (Dhritiman Chatterjee) seizes the opportunity to condemn
Manmohan's personal beliefs and nomadic way of life, the family
inadvertently alienate their captivating and enlightening guest.