I can't recall the year when I watched the movie Pather Panchali for the first time. I can't understand the Bengali language. So it was all with the subtitles. I can't even recall what made me think about the movie in the first place. I was ignorant of Bengali cinema and literature at that time. The film left an everlasting impact on me. I couldn't get myself out of the world of Nishchindipur. Its characters kept haunting me for a long time. It was during the 2020 lockdown that I laid my hands on the Hindi translation of the book. Luckily, the translation was good and I enjoyed reading it. The impact was far greater than that the movie had on me. My heart longed for more stories from Bibhutibhushan Bandhopadhyay. The world he had created through Pather Panchali took me into some unknown realms. It filled my heart with nostalgia. I searched the web and came across 'Making a Mango Whistle' unaware of it being the same story translated in English and abridged slightly to match the reading taste of children. But I enjoyed and savoured it more than that of the Hindi one.
The story takes you to bygone rural Bengal of the early 20th century, the village of forest and river. It is the story of a family who is poorer even than the standards of their village Nishchindipur. The story is of the brother-sister duo of this family, busy in their world, searching for and collecting even the tiniest, discarded, and sometimes useless things from their natural surroundings; the things that meant the world to them.
Durga, the elder of the two, is the one who will be hard for me to ever forget. She is one of those characters who have been immortalized by the sheer simplicity with which they have been portrayed by the authors. She is a free spirit, the lover of fruits, and whatever edible thing she finds in the forest. She feels at home in the wild. She seems to have all the time in the world. The village, the forest, and the fields are her playground. Bibhutibhushan Bandhopadhyay has very beautifully written what kind of a natural spirit Durga is:
"She didn't much care about playing with the neighbourhood children but was forever outdoors exploring the countryside on her own. She knew exactly where and when the first of the tiny violet-pink bainchi berries ripened, which were the sweetest jujubes growing in the middle of this or that clump of bamboos, and when the first tiny mango would have blossomed in somebody's orchard."
Durga feels alive in her little world. Her precious property is her little toy box full of whatever little things and seeds that put a glimmer in her eyes. Despite being a teenager, she never takes interest in homely matters. She is comfortable only when she is one with her natural surroundings. She is full of life, her eyes always full of hope. Durga also plays the role of mother to Apu, her younger brother. Apu is a lover of animals and birds, seeker of knowledge, who wants to know about everything around him. He is a writer, a poet, a singer, and most of them all, a dreamer. His sister matters more to him than anything or anyone in the world. Apu is the only one who understands his sister Durga who was constantly beaten by many and is not so loved. How much he admires her sister and understands her is very much clear from these lines:
"That one strand of his sister's hair standing up stiff and blowing in the wind always filled him with an explicable tenderness for her. It somehow made him feel that Didi had no one of her own- as though she had come all alone from some far-off place and had no one for a friend. He wanted only to find some way of taking away all her sorrows, of fulfilling all her desires and needs."
Their love, naughty fights, running away into the wild, exploring new things, collecting 'delicacies', enjoying all the little things of life, and taking care of each other are the essence of this story. Their life is full of severe poverty and tragedies, but still, they find happiness somewhere. Their relationship makes the story alive.
The character, other than Durga and Apu, who will keep haunting me for days, is Indira Thakurin, the Pishima. She is the manifestation of the plight of widows in India in earlier times. And when the widow turns to old age, her situation worsens. Her little part in the story has left an ever-lasting impact. I love her relationship with Durga and their time spent together, singing and telling stories. The other characters have also been portrayed amazingly. Father and mother are hopeful for a better future, but their dreams ate not very big. They just want a life where they can have good food two times a day and can live their life comfortably. They never desire luxuries.
Although there are some vague references to Westernisation and British times (the train tracks and a defunct factory near the village) yet the world, the family lives in, is so small that the females of the family have never set foot away from the village. Sarbojaya has even never been to a temple that is only six miles away from their home.
The story is of desire and loss. The story is full of tragedies, but at the same time, it shows how the bitter world can be beautiful from the perspective of innocent children.
This story will stay within me forever.