The enduring legacy and relevance of Satyajit Ray’s ‘Apur Sansar’ | The Indian Express

The enduring legacy and relevance of Satyajit Ray’s ‘Apur Sansar’ | The Indian Express

Written by Amitabha Bhattacharya |Updated: July 25, 2019 9:03:43 am

The writer is a retired IAS officer

The enduring legacy and relevance of Satyajit Ray’s ‘Apur Sansar’

The Apu trilogy, chronicling with great artistry the growth of Apu from childhood through adolescence to manhood, struck a sympathetic chord with sensitive men and women across cultures.

Merely remembering Satyajit Ray as India’s great cultural icon after Rabindranath Tagore or as the world’s most decorated film director, would not enrich our mind.

Jawaharlal Nehru, after watching Satyajit Ray’s second film Aparajito (The Unvanquished, 1956), had famously turned to Ray to ask, ‘What happens to Apu now?’ Watching Apur Sansar (The World of Apu, 1959), the third of the celebrated Apu trilogy, 60 years after its release, one does not fail to understand what made his work so deep, pervasive and sustained in its appeal.