Summary
Sarbjaya calls Durga over, and when she won't come, Sarbjaya begins pulling her hair angrily. Indir runs over to see what's going on, then goes to assist Durga, but Sarbajaya pushes her away. Sarbajaya pulls Durga by the hair, dragging her through the courtyard and out the door. We see Indir and Apu's faces in closeup as Sarbajaya cries. Apu then goes to get some water.
The scene shifts and we see Sarbajya weeping, as Apu reads to himself out loud. Sarbajaya tells Apu to fetch Durga and bring her in for the family meal, and Apu runs happily to fetch his sister. He runs into the forest to find her.
We see Indir telling Durga a scary story about an ogress as Durga rests her head on her lap. Hari calls Durga and asks her to give the fish for dinner to Sarbajaya, which she does with a smile. Suddenly, Sarbajaya goes to talk with Hari and tells Durga to watch the milk. Excitedly, Hari hands Sarbajaya coins worth three months pay—24 rupees.
During dinner, Hari tells Sarbajaya that a wealthy man told him that he knew his father, a great priest, and would like him to perform a ceremony for him. "Did you say yes?" Sarbajaya asks, and he tells her that he did not want to accept immediately in case it made him look like he was unemployed. "I shouldn't appear too eager. He can wait until after the festival. We'll manage on my wages until then," says Hari.
Sarbajaya and Hari discuss how they will spend his wages, the fact that they owe his aunt 5 rupees and they have to do some repairs on their home. Upstairs, Durga and Apu discuss the fact that it's 21 days until the festival. As they lie in bed, Apu asks Durga if she stole Tunu's beads, and she says she didn't.
Hari lies down for bed, and Sarbajaya asks him about a place near the river "where pundits recite scripture," suggesting that it's a good way to make money. Hari doesn't want to, saying that he left that place years ago and could not return. Sarbajaya laments her house, the fact that it feels like she lives in the forest and she is lonely. "I had dreams too, about all the things I would do," she says, to herself.
We see Indir outside singing a song about poverty and death.
The next day, Durga does housework, building a fire with Apu. Indir wanders by in a new shawl and asks where Sarbajaya is, and Durga tells her she is by the pond. Indir tells Durga that Raju gave her her new shawl to keep her warm. Durga and a group of children gather around the fire cooking. Some of them begin fighting over who was supposed to bring the salt, erupting in a yelling match.
We see Sarbajaya putting away some plates when suddenly she sees Indir wandering around. She calls Indir over and asks her where she got her shawl. When Indir says she got it from Raju, Sarbajaya becomes frustrated, wondering why Raju isn't taking better care of Indir, if he can afford to buy her a shawl. Indir tells Sarbajaya that she asked Hari for a shawl, and questions why she cannot have "fancies" as an older woman. Sarbajaya gets angry at her for not thinking about the needs of her children. "As long as you live here, you cannot beg," Sarbajaya says to Indir, asking her to leave and accidentally dropping a box with fragile plates and bowls in it. Sarbajaya collapses in a coughing fit and Indir runs to her side, but Sarbajaya swats her away and tells her she has to leave.
We see Durga with her friend, Ranu, who is getting married. They eat and Durga asks when the wedding is, guessing that it's in 2 months and 10 days. Ranu tells Durga that Sarbajaya is looking for a husband for Durga already, and Durga seems surprised.
Indir goes to Raju's house and asks for him to take her in. He tells her he can only house her for a few days, as she complains that Sarbajaya nags her. "Where else can I go at my age?" Indir says.
We see a theatre troupe performing, with jubilant drumming and incense burning. The children of the village run to watch the performance, which includes a warrior fighting the Serpent King. The warrior scolds the woman he loves for begging for mercy from the serpent, as Apu watches from the audience. The woman begs for the Serpent King to kill her. As the suspense builds, Apu gets more and more engaged with the drama. A sword fight occurs onstage.
The next day we see Apu at home, making a stage mustache and crown and looking at himself in the mirror, pretending to be a character from the play. He asks Sarbajaya to tie the crown for him, but she tells him she's too busy. Durga comes in and asks Apu to help her find their auntie, even though Sarbajaya urges them not to. When she notices Apu's crown, Durga becomes upset about where he found the tinsel and runs into a room to find her craft box broken into. She chases after Apu, eventually catching him and hitting him.
Analysis
This section begins with the most dramatic event yet. After Sarbajaya is scolded by an aunt for Durga's apparent crime, she immediately takes it out on Durga, and with a rancor and physical aggressiveness that seems to surprise even her. While her daughter's hair has been sacred to her, and she has seen that it is properly oiled and combed, here she grabs it and uses it to drag Durga out of the family compound, kicking her out for good. Indir tries to intervene, but Sarbajaya pushes her away as up-tempo drumming accompanies the familial violence. In the wake of the event, all we can hear is Sarbajaya's cries and whimpers as she considers what she has been driven to do to her own daughter.
Yet again, Ray uses photography to heighten the viewer's alignment with the story. When Indir tells Durga a scary story in the evening, we see her shadow in a tight close-up on the wall, and hear her voice affecting a breathy ominous quality to heighten the suspense in the story she tells. The image of the shadow is disorienting, and for a moment, it is difficult to tell who is speaking, and why are they are speaking so hauntingly. As the camera zooms out, we see Durga resting her head on her aunt's lap, as Indir tells the story.
We learn more about Sarbajaya's inner struggle in this section of the film. She is burdened with worrying about the sustained wellbeing of her family, while Hari and her children maintain a calm assurance that everything will work out. When she asks Hari if he would ever go and make money as a preacher at a special part of the river, he insists that he could not do that. As he drifts off to sleep Sarbajaya expresses her worries about the future, her loneliness living in the forest, with no one to talk to. While Sarbajaya has seemed like a cold and domineering character, the viewer is let in on exactly why she is as stern as she is—it stems from her sense that she is all alone in the world, that her life has not turned out the way she expected, and she is burdened with the worry about it.
Sarbajaya is very vulnerable and in need of care, but her sense that she must remain strong for the good of her family prevents her from accepting anyone's care. For instance, in the moment after she kicks Indir out of their house, she collapses, dropping a box of fragile items and breaking into a coughing fit. Indir attempts to help her, but Sarbajaya swats her away and holds firm to her demand that Indir leave. Sarbajaya's inability to show her vulnerability to her family, to accept their love and help, leaves her all the more helpless in trying times.
The film is more of a portrait of a family than a particularly forward-moving narrative. We are granted a window into one family's struggle with poverty, and how each of them deals with it in a slightly different way. The family alternately experiences joy, sorrow, and anger, as they struggle to carve out a life for themselves with limited resources. While Durga turns to mischief and play, and Apu and Hari to their imaginations, Sarbajaya struggles to maintain the pragmatic side of their lives and suffers for it. In spite of these internal differences in coping mechanisms, the family manages to navigate poverty without losing sight of life's beauty and wonder.
