‘When Durga Died, We All Felt The Loss’

‘I
often
wondered
while
watching
the
film/trilogy,
what
if
Durga
had
lived.’
‘
What
if
Ray
made

The
Durga
Trilogy.’
Sandip
Roy
looks
back
at

Pather
Panchali‘s
Durga
and
the
woman
who
brought
her
alive,
Uma
Dasgupta.

For
generations
of
film
lovers,
in
Bengal
and
beyond,
if
heartbreak
had
a
name,
it
was
Durga.

‘That
scene
when
Harihar
realises
that
Durga
is
no
more.
I
have
never
cried
more
watching
a
film,’
tweeted
writer
and
film
critic
Aseem
Chhabra
recently.

He
was
referring
to
Satyajit
Ray’s
1955
masterpiece,

Pather
Panchali.

Harihar
returns
home
to
his
village
after
a
long
time
away,
bearing
gifts
for
his
family,
not
knowing
that
his
daughter
Durga
is
dead.

As
he
holds
out
a
sari
for
her,
his
wife
breaks
down,
the
piercing
wail
of
a

taarshehnai
drowning
out
her
sobs.
It
is
a
gutting
scene.
Even
now
whenever
I
watch
that
film,
my
eyes
well
up
in
anticipation
of
that
scene.

Pather
Panchali
was
the
first
film
in
Ray’s
world-famous

Apu
Trilogy.

The
films
trace
Apu’s
journey
from
a
wide-eyed
boy
in
a
little
village
to
becoming
a
young
father
in
Kolkata.
His
sister
Durga’s
story
ends
in
the
first
film
itself.

Unlike
Apu,
Durga
has
never
aged
in
our
imagination.

She
is
forever
that
teenaged
girl
with
dancing
eyes
running
like
quicksilver
through
the
fields
of
our
memory.

But
Uma
Dasgupta,
who
acted
as
Durga,
grew
older
like
everyone
else.
She
died
in
Kolkata
on
November
18
at
the
age
of
84.

Pather
Panchali
was
her
one
and
only
film.
Even
that
almost
didn’t
happen.
She
had
been
plucked
out
of
school
for
an
audition.

She
thought
it
was
for
a
play
and
wore
a
favourite
green
printed
frock
and
a
pearl
necklace.

An
aghast
Ray
said,
‘What
are
you
wearing
around
your
neck?
My
film
will
have
nothing
like
that
in
it.’

In
My
Years
with
Apu,
Satyajit
Ray
writes
he
took
her
to
the
roof
to
take
some
photographs
with
his
Leica.

‘Since
she
seemed
a
bit
demure,
and
Durga
was
a
tomboy,
I
asked
her
to
make
faces
for
the
camera.
She
obliged
with
a
total
lack
of
inhibition.’

Those
photographs
are
now
on
the
cover
of
a
collection
of
Dasgupta’s
writings,

Umar
Panchali.

But
even
after
Ray
was
happy,
her
father
Paltu
Dasgupta,
an
ex-footballer
for
the
Mohun
Bagan
club,
declared
no
girl
from
his
family
would
act
in
a
film.

It
took
a
lot
of
persuasion
by
Ray
and
her
sister
to
make
him
change
his
mind.
But
he
categorically
refused
to
let
Ray
pay
her.

Ray
bought
her
a
bound
set
of
the
works
of
Rabindranath
Tagore
instead.
Later,
Uma
recalled
that
whenever
anyone
introduced
Paltu
Dasgupta
as
‘Uma
Dasgupta’s
father’,
he
would
retort,
‘Please
say
Uma
Dasgupta
is
Paltu
Dasgupta’s
daughter.’

That
film
made
her
world
famous.

American
magazines
listed
her
as
one
of
the
teenagers
of
the
year.

When
Jawaharlal
Nehru
attended
a
special
screening
in
Calcutta,
she
had
to
felicitate
him
with
a
bouquet.

‘After
the
film
ended,
he
told
me
many
things.
Scared
and
shy,
I
understood
almost
nothing,’
recalled
Dasgupta.

‘Thankfully,
Manikda
(Ray)
managed
the
situation.’

Rabindranath
Tagore’s
niece
Indira
Devi
Chaudhurani
sent
her
a
hand-written
note
along
with
a
photograph
she
herself
had
taken
of
Tagore.

Many
wondered
why,
after
all
that
acclaim,
Uma
Dasgupta
never
acted
again.

In

Umar
Panchali,
she
says
she
had
neither
the
looks
nor
the
temperament.

She
writes,
‘In
a
middle
class
family
like
ours,
working
in
films
was
neither
desirable
nor
respectable.’

She
finished
college,
married
Diptikumar
Sen,
a
river
pilot
and
set
up
a
family.

As
Uma
Sen,
she
became
a
teacher
for
a
school
in
Kolkata.

Parents
of
the
students
would
often
exclaim,
much
to
her
irritation,
‘Are
you
really
that
Durga?
It’s
impossible
to
recognise
you
now.’

She
wrote
poems
and
short
stories,
drew
pictures.
But

Pather
Panchali
never
left
her.

People
would
seek
her
out
every
time
that
film
had
an
important
anniversary.

Dasgupta
writes
she
worried
she
was
becoming
a
‘cliche’
doomed
to
doing
an
‘action
replay’
of
that
one
extraordinary
role.

When
an
aunt
took
her
to
Madhyamgram,
showed
her
off
to
all
the
neighbours
and
then
made
her
sit
on
a
makeshift
stage
while
the
film
was
screened
on
a
sheet,
she
almost
died
with
embarrassment.

It
was
tiring
to
face
the
same
questions
—
how
did
Ray
select
you?
How
did
he
direct
you?
How
close
were
you
to
Apu?

She
writes
just
did
what
she
was
told.

‘Perhaps
I
was
able
to
do
it
because
I
didn’t
think
too
much
about
it.
I
didn’t
have
that
seriousness,’
she
said.

Shoot
days
felt
like
a
picnic
as
they
traveled
to
a
small
village.
Ray
gave
her
a
script
illustrated
shot
by
shot.

‘But
don’t
memorise
it,’
he
told
her.
‘I
might
change
it.’

She
rues
she
did
not
save
her
copy.

‘I
didn’t
know
its
worth
then,’
she
writes.

But
that
role
of
a
life
interrupted
haunts
us
even
today.

‘I
often
wondered
while
watching
the
film/trilogy,
what
if
Durga
had
lived.
What
if
Ray
made

The
Durga
Trilogy,’
writes
film
critic
Tanushree
Ghosh.

‘I
felt
for
Durga,
not
Apu.’

Ray
unflinchingly
showed
us
how
her
mother
doted
on
her
son
and
treated
the
daughter
harshly,
trying
to
bend
her
into
demure
compliance.

But
the
genius
of
Ray
was
he
never
forgot
to
also
remind
us
there
was
still
love,
threadbare
and
worn
as
it
was,
that
tied
this
little
family
together.

Apu
doted
on
Durga.
She
was
his
protector.
He
was
her
shadow.

When
she
died,
we
all
felt
the
loss.

Durga
died
but
perhaps
her
unfinished
story
was
picked
up
in
other
films
in
other
roles
of
women
who
wanted
to
live
outside
the
little
circles
society
earmarked
for
them.

Arati
in

Mahanagar
stepping
out
of
home
to
work.

Charu
in

Charulata
on
that
swing
watching
her
orderly
world
turn
upside
down.

Mrinmoyee
in

Teen
Kanya
on
a
madcap
chase
behind
her
pet
squirrel.

In

Umar
Panchali,
Dasgupta
wonders
what
life
would
have
been
like
if
she
could
have
spent
her
life
in
a
‘freeze
shot’
as
Durga.

Instead,
she
did
something
extraordinary.

She
went
back
to
an
ordinary
life
as
Uma,
which
is
another
name
for
Durga.

As
she
exits
the
stage,
she
has
left
behind
through

Umar
Panchali
some
snippets
of
the
woman
she
became.

The
last
poem
is
from
this
year
itself:

Manik-da
took
‘Durga’
Oh
so
high
There
are
a
few
steps
still
to
descend.
I
have
got
love
and
affection
in
spades
Though
sometimes
I
also
float
and
sink
in
a
web
of
lies
So
let
me
draw
the
closing
line
now
No,
let
me
not
say
if
I
come
or
go
My
age
after
all
is
just
eighty-four.

Run
in
peace,
Durga.

Sandip
Roy
is
a
podcaster
and
columnist
and
the
author
of
the
novel

Don’t
Let
Him
Know.