Underdogs India knocks 'chokers' South Africa out of Twenty20 World Cup

When a young Indian team under the captainship of Mahendra Singh Dhoni landed in South Africa about 10 days ago for the Twenty20 cricket world cup, nobody gave them any chance. They were the “underdogs”. However, people have now started taking the “underdogs” seriously when, in two successive days, they put it across two teams with the most experience in this version of cricket.

The hero of the match against South Africa was a 20-year-old making his debut. Rohit Sharma played with the poise, composure and temperament of an experienced professional. And if we add his exceptional fielding abilities to his batting, we can say that India has found a long-term middle-order batsman who should eventually make a mark in all forms of the game.

India, who is all of one game old in this format when the Twenty20 WC started, has shut many critics with their awesome performance. While we got to see some awesome batting display in the match against England, the victory against “chokers” South Africa — one of the best teams in cricket that has failed to go past the semi-final stage of a major tournament since being readmitted to the international fold in 1991 — saw significant performances in batting and a sensational display of fielding skills — Dinesh Karthik’s sensational catch to dismiss Graeme Smith, and Rohit Sharma’s Jonty Rhodes-like dive to run out Justin Kemp.

The only area that India needs to keep a watch on is the indiscipline in bowling. They gave away a handful in wides. Their excellence in other areas along with South Africa’s uncanny ability to play their worst cricket at the biggest stages allowed India to get away with it, but on Saturday against Australia such profligacy might cost them dear.

Indian cinema has not seen anything like Pather Panchali!

Last week I saw Pather Panchali (Song Of The Road) for the nth time… I sat down and wondered about all that had been said and written about the film over the years and then felt like doing something to pay tribute to one of the most astonishing films in the history of cinema. I decided to make a collage of a few stills from the films that I could say was my way of paying tribute to this amazing film, even if it was in a very small way.

Along with this I also ended up paying tribute to the man who made this wonderful film.
The man who started off as a visualiser in an ad agency in Calcutta… the man who made 35 feature films and five documentaries… the man who won practically every award in filmmaking… the man whom both the British Federation of Film Societies and the Moscow Film Festival Committee named one of the greatest directors of the second half of the 20th century… the man who received the Oscar for Lifetime Achievement as well as the Bharat Ratna - Satyajit Ray.

Ray caught the attention of cinema connoisseurs worldwide with the release of Pather Panchali in 1955 after about three years of unceasing financial difficulties.

Ray never wrote a complete screenplay for Pather Panchali… he sketched most of it. Some of those sketches - series of wash paintings in the manner of comics - are displayed in the Cinematheque Francaise in Paris.

The film - first in the Apu trilogy - mirrors the life in rural Bengal seen through the eyes of two children - Apu and his sister Durga - born in an impoverished family.

Pather Panchali has some of the most visually stunning scenes I have ever seen... the first raindrops on the bald pate of an angler, the water hyacinths in the pond, Durga and Apu spellbound by a humming telegraph pole, the siblings running through the kash (white cotton flower) fields at the sight of an approaching train, Durga developing pneumonia and dying or the scene after Durga’s death when Apu on discovering the necklace that she had actually stolen, throws it into the pond so that it remains a secret forever that his sister was the thief she was said to be … I can just go on and on.

However, two scenes in the film have left the maximum impact on me.

One is the scene when the monsoon arrives and Durga dances exultantly in the rain while, the less-adventurous Apu, watches her admiringly, huddled under a tree in the distance. Soon Durga joins her brother and they huddle together.

And the second one is the scene of Durga’s death. Apu summons a neighbour saying his mother has called her as Durga’s condition has deteriorated. The woman comes to Apu’s house. Inside, Durga’s mother Sarbojaya is sitting, unnaturally still, staring with unseeing eyes holding Durga’s lifeless head on her lap. The neighbour picks up Durga’s hand, but finds no pulse. She sits down near Sarbojaya and then embraces her, stroking her hair in a gesture of compassion, sharing her grief. To me this is one of the most saddest scenes ever filmed in Indian cinema... unspoken, silent and yet everytime I see it I get a lump in my throat.

A critic had once said about Pather Panchali: “The images speak and we listen with our eyes.”
This is my tribute to the some of the most enduring images on Indian screen and the man who created them. Indian cinema has not and will never ever see anything like Pather Panchali.