The World of Apu...

Welcome to the world of Apu, a world where you cherish the simplest pleasures of life, a world where faith gives you wings to fly across the turbulent ocean of life, a world that has been captured through the lenses of the great Satyajit Ray and spoken by the language of metaphors...

             "The World of Apu" is the third part of the famous Apu Trilogy and is inspired by the 1932 novel "Aparajito" by Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay. The movie showcases the journey of Apu from being a wanderer to a person who finds the ultimate meaning of his life.

              The film starts with the daily life of Apu - an unemployed graduate who lives in a rented apartment in Calcutta and doesn't have the capability to even pay his rent for months. Apu is a self made person who has lost his parents in his childhood itself. He is ambitious yet practical. He is an aspirant writer and has been writing a novel based on his own life for quiet some time. Though several job rejections have left him distressed, his faith for life is unflinching. Truly so, certain events change his life forever when he goes to a friend's cousin's wedding. There, he is flooded by the request of getting married to the bride itself as the original groom was found to be mad. To save the girl from being chewed by the jaws of superstition, he decides to marry her. As he himself was surrounded with dark financial and professional clouds, carrying the responsibility of an accidental wife, who happens to be from a rich family was too heavy for him. Yet, keeping faith in life, with a smile in his face, he brings his wife home. The following scene depicts the few moments after the bride enters the house for the first time.

              I chose to write about this scene as this had an indelible impact on me and substantiated the power of metaphors in storytelling.The bride had controlled a myriad of emotions for a long time now. Her heart was drenched in the river of unfortunate incidents...almost getting married to a mad person...cancellation of marriage...being discarded by villagers for being a bad omen...getting married to a person who doesn't have a family...and who doesn't even have sound finances to make his own ends meet...

              Naturally the floodgates of emotions opened....and she starts crying thinking about the joke life has played with her...Suddenly, her expression changes when she sees a mother playing with her child just below the apartment...

              A deep pause....and she realizes that why she existed...that she is not the same girl anymore...that she is a married woman now....that God has given her the opportunity to embrace motherhood...that it is the child who gives birth to a mother...that her duty of being the quintessential wife has just begun...

              All these thoughts made her wipe off her tears and accept life as it is. With a rejuvenated spirit, she sows the seeds of motherhood and a happy family life....

              

Will be back very soon with the rest half of the story in my next post....including the best scene that I am sure will touch all of your hearts....

Thanks..