Latest news with #Apu
Hindustan Times
4 hours ago
- Hindustan Times
Iron maidens: 200 years after the first one, where will trains take us next?
Apu and Durga hear a strange sound, of a kind they have never heard before. They run run run through tall grass to find out what is making the noise. They emerge from the grass to a sight that takes their breath away. Unfortunately, Durga stumbles and misses the spectacle. Her brother Apu stares, riveted: a steam engine, huffing and puffing, is pulling a passenger train. This is widely considered the most memorable scene in Satyajit Ray's classic, Pather Panchali (1955). Railways spelt magic. For young Apu and Durga. For most of us. It has been 200 years since the spell was first cast. The world's first steam-powered passenger train made its first run, from Stockton to Darlington in England, a distance of just under 42 km, in 1825. (The first passenger train journey in India, that famous one from Bombay to Thane, occurred 28 years later, in 1853). Trains have, of course, changed everything since. They have democratised travel, sped it up and made it more comfortable; changed how goods are moved, drawn hinterlands closer to markets; allowed remote regions to participate to a far greater extent in economies. They became, almost immediately, an integral part of economic progress. Food security, real-estate, defence: none of it was quite complete without the railroad. It would take the world a while to get used to these new speeds (of 50 to 80 kmph, at a time when cars averaged about 40 kmph). In 1830, in fact, a Liverpool-Manchester train ran over British Member of Parliament William Huskisson. He was attending the opening of a new rail link when he stepped from a train onto the tracks, with a few others. He was clipped by a rake on a parallel line, in what became the first widely reported death by passenger locomotive. It's a fatal error people continue to make; perhaps the brain cannot adequately assess something moving so fast. Every year in Mumbai, India's densest rail commuter hub, an estimated 2,500 people die while crossing the tracks, most of them unable to judge the time it will take the oncoming train to reach them. *** Back to the 1800s, the railways boosted the growth of cities and of empires. It became possible to live scores of kilometres away from work, and easier to rule continents where one had only the slimmest sliver of a claim. As these new links connected harbour towns and interiors, making business more profitable for trading companies, colonial powers such as the British used them to solidify their reign. In the US, the railroad networks shooting out across the continent spawned a new generation of millionaires. They also boosted an upwardly mobile middle-class that grew rich on investments in such companies, which saw stocks rise rapidly from 1865 all the way to the early stock-market bubble of 1873. The collapse would be swift and devastating: a sad and since-recurring tale of a fast-expanding industry and adventurous investment firms taking a tumble together. In early echoes of a pattern that continues to be repeated, banks and businesses that had leaned on each other, counting on the continued railroad boom to see them through, fell like dominoes, in what became known as the Panic of 1873, a downturn that spread all the way to Europe. *** The trains themselves chugged ever-forward. What started out as one type of rake, a steam engine pulling a set of carriages, grew to encompass a myriad forms. There would be a lot more belching of smoke and fumes before trains began to go electric. In fact, the world's first underground railroad system, set up in London in 1863, was powered by steam until 1890. These chugging engines would move troops, supplies and letters from home, during the Great War. Great big steam locomotives would play the sinister role of mass deportations to concentration camps, about two decades later, in what would come to be called World War 2. *** Across the colonies, by this point, a strange thing was happening. Disillusioned by their continued exclusion from their own growing economies, and tired of their second-class status — even as they harvested the fields for cotton and fought in the wars on behalf of their foreign rulers — large colonised populations began to get restive. In vast and diverse regions such as India and Africa, the cheap, fast-moving passenger trains were one of the things that made it easier to reach out across vast distances, and differences, and unite. (English, as a common language, would assist in this cause too; as would the radio, as a means of communication and broadcast.) Think about how often one sees the train in the 1982 film Gandhi. Think about how impossible the freedom rallies might have been without the ability to fly across the landscape and be in two distant places if not at once then at least in one day. *** Then the wars were over, freedom had been won. The sense of wonder, captured so evocatively by filmmakers, writers, poets and painters, faded a fair bit as new marvels took over: cars, planes, missions to the moon. Sample these awe-filled lines by the Scottish poet Robert Louis Stevenson, in his poem, From A Railway Carriage (1885)… Faster than fairies, faster than witches, Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches… Here is a cart run away in the road Lumping along with man and load; And here is a mill and there is a river: Each a glimpse and gone for ever! A very different view emerges, less than a century later, in the Jethro Tull rock classic Locomotive Breath (1971; lyrics by Ian Anderson). Here, the train serves as a metaphor for much of what it, and the industrial revolution, have enabled: explosions of human industry, activity and habitation: In the shuffling madness Of the locomotive breath Runs the all-time loser Headlong to his death Oh, he feels the piston scraping Steam breaking on his brow Old Charlie stole the handle And the train it won't stop Oh no way to slow down… No way to slow down No way to slow down No way to slow down No way to slow down *** Japan built the world's first high-speed train, the Shinkansen or New Trunk Line, nicknamed the bullet train for how fast it flew. Special tracks minimised friction; aerodynamic design raised speeds. At launch, the Shinkansen had a maximum speed of 210 kmph, in 1964. Speeds have since inched up steadily, to 320 kmph, then 443 kmph and now a high of 603 km per hour for its maglev or magnetic levitation rakes. China has used high-tech trains to reinforce its claims over autonomous regions on its fringes, such as Tibet, in a move that doubles as a symbol of its reach and power. These trains reach new kinds of highs. The Qinghai-Tibet link is currently the world's highest railway line, stretching about 2,000 km across the Himalayan plateau, from Xining in central China to Lhasa in Tibet. *** India is now entering a new rail era, with plush trains launched for the Everyman and plans for high-speed links. The country's vast population still depends on this extensive network, with the Indian Railways clocking the highest number of rides taken in the world: about 8 billion, across its 7,325 stations. The Indian Railways is also the country's second-largest employer after the Armed Forces (about 1.2 million are employed by the former; 1.4 million by the latter). Millions of train lovers, meanwhile, feel the same kind of thrill Durga and Apu did, when they hear the clacking or hoot that indicates a train will soon whizz by. (Ambi Parameswaran is a best-selling author and an independent brand coach. His latest book is Marketing Mixology. He can be reached at ambimgp@
News18
03-05-2025
- Entertainment
- News18
Satyajit Ray Through Hindu Lens: The Brahmo Who Never Gave Up Brahman
Last Updated: This May 3, Satyajit Ray's cinema turns 70. The maestro, incidentally, would have turned 104 on May 2 On May 3, 1955, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, at its Textiles and Ornamental Arts of India exhibition, screened a film titled The Story of Apu and Durga, later to be titled Pather Panchali or Song of the Little Road. It was well received, although it ran without subtitles. This May 3, Satyajit Ray's cinema turns 70. The maestro, incidentally, would have turned 104 on May 2. If he were alive and still making movies, the most pressing question he would have faced could very likely be about his faith and spirituality. We live in a time of resurgent, assertive Hindutva and a highly reactive Islam. It is a time, ironically, like many of his movies, of black and white. The maestro would be pressed to take a side. It is not that he did not face that question during his lifetime. There had been a shrill crescendo of protests after his Devi (The Goddess) released in 1960. The movie is about a young woman who is tragically and almost forcibly elevated to divinity after her father-in-law dreams about her being the incarnation of the goddess. Hindu conservatives were also furious when Ray's Ganashatru (Enemy of the People) portrayed how the holy water or 'charanamrita" got contaminated because of official corruption and apathy, endangering thousands of lives. The narrative that Ray was unfairly critical of Hinduness got traction because of his Brahmo faith, a reformist and so-called 'progressive" tributary of Sanatan Dharma, pioneered by Raja Ram Mohan Roy. Ray, ironically, was one of the harshest critics of Bengal's communist regime, and never hesitated to speak the blunt truth even to the towering CPM patriarch and then chief minister, Jyoti Basu. His Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne and Hirak Rajar Deshe are trenchant critiques of totalitarian regimes. If one looks holistically at Satyajit Ray's entire body of work, a different picture emerges. By his own admission, he was against religious dogma and superstition. He was also questioning about organised religion, as we find him articulate in his last movie, Agantuk. But he was not against religion, spirituality, and mysticism. In fact, the social setting of almost all Ray movies is noticeably Hindu. Except for Shatranj Ke Khilari, there is not even one major Muslim character in his films, even in those set in pre-Partition, Muslim-dominant Bengal. He made an entire, dazzlingly successful detective movie, Sonar Kella, based on his own Feluda series on reincarnation and rebirth. His fascination and curiosity with 'jatishwar", or those who claim to remember their previous birth, finds its way even in films like Nayak. He portrays the impoverished village priest Harihar in the Apu trilogy with no malice but almost a tragic-nostalgic fondness. Portrayal of Apu's childhood has evoked comparisons with little Krishna's carefree, playful ways. Ray shunned the long, sermon-filled Brahmo services. His cinematic depiction of the good-intentioned but boring husband in Charulata, although made after Rabindranath Tagore's novel Nashto Neer, captures the character's lack of emotional and sexual vitality. The roots of Ray's spiritual vision lie in his childhood. In his essay Through Agnostic Eyes: Representations of Hinduism in the Cinema of Satyajit Ray, Chandok Sengoopta of Birkbeck College, London, writes: But first, we need to outline just what kind of Brahmo upbringing Ray had and how he reacted to it. Ray's father Sukumar Ray (1887–1923), who has long been iconic in Bengali literary history for his nonsense verse and other works for children, also distinguished himself as a printing technologist, a photographer, a publisher and magazine editor. Although a committed Brahmo, he and his young associates nearly brought about a split in the Sadharan Brahmo Samaj with their demands for sweeping reforms in structure, administration and ethical code. For Sukumar Ray, the Brahmo movement, despite commencing within orthodox Hinduism as a reform initiative, had diverged so greatly from the parent since then that it had become a sovereign faith, and he did not shy away from a public (and sharply polemical) debate with his close friend Rabindranath Tagore, who, belonging to the conservative Adi Brahmo Samaj, held that Brahmos, in spite of their rejection of many orthodox beliefs and practices, were still members of the larger Hindu family. Sukumar Ray, of course, died at an early age and Satyajit was brought up by his mother Suprabha, whose understanding of the Brahmo-Hindu relationship was interestingly different from her late husband's. Diligent as she was in attending Brahmo services and shunning festivals such as the 'idolatrous" Durga Puja, she wore the iron bangle and vermilion like all Hindu married women. Apart from giving them up after losing her husband, she never dressed again in anything other than the orthodox Hindu widow's plain white sari (than), despite being reminded by no less a Brahmo luminary than Dr Kadambini Ganguli that her own father-in-law Upendrakishore Ray had decried this custom. It is perhaps this confluence of childhood strains that makes Ray grey. While he captures the riverbanks and temples of Banaras mesmerisingly in Aparajito (1956) and Joi Baba Felunath (1979), in his Abhijan (1962), a Christian convert feels uncomfortable serving food to the upper-caste hero because she had belonged to an 'untouchable" caste before her conversion. But the clincher that he never snapped away from his Sanatan roots is there in his last movie, Agantuk. Unlike an Alfred Hitchcock, Quentin Tarantino, or Manoj Night Shyamalan, Ray was not a director who did cameos in his own films. But in Agantuk, a film he shot in his final days, he made an exception. He sang the iconic ode to Shri Krishna in his own quivering yet baritone voice: 'Hari Haray namah Krishna Yadavay namah…" top videos View all A final clue to his spiritual self before moving on from the mortal. Abhijit Majumder is a senior journalist. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18's views. tags : Cinema hindu satyajit ray Location : New Delhi, India, India First Published: May 03, 2025, 07:00 IST News opinion Opinion | Satyajit Ray Through Hindu Lens: The Brahmo Who Never Gave Up Brahman
The Independent
15-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Simpsons voice actor says stepping away from Apu role ‘required a deep dive'
The Simpsons voice actor Hank Azaria has explained in a new interview why he chose to step back from voicing Apu Nahasapeemapetilon following controversy surrounding the character. Azaria voiced the Indian shopkeeper on the animated comedy for 30 years, but his depiction faced high-profile criticism in 2017 with the release of a documentary titled The Problem with Apu. The film saw comedian Hari Kondabolu investigate why the character was problematic and a racial stereotype. Simpsons writer, producer and erstwhile showrunner Mike Reiss confirmed in 2018 that the sitcom had decided to retire Apu. In a new discussion on the topic, Azaria has told the Pablo Torre Finds Out podcast that his decision to step away from Apu 'required a deep dive'. Azaria explained that the character's voice was inspired by Peter Sellars's performance in the 1968 film The Party, where the British actor wore brownface. 'What's the difference between Inspector Clouseau, a silly French voice, or Doctor Strangelove, a silly German voice, and Hrundi V Bakshi, a rather silly Indian voice?' asked Azaria. 'And it's a question I still get asked. People will say comments still to this day, 'Why can you do [Italian Simpsons character] Luigi and that's not offensive? Why can you talk like [stereotypical hick character] Cletus and that's not a problem, but you can't do Apu? Right?' 'Honestly, at first, I thought let me look into this, and then I'll go back to doing the voice, and say I understand, but I'm going to keep doing this. And I was surprised myself that I came down on, 'No, actually, I think I am participating in a harm here.'' He also said he is 'not a hero' and had a 'professional public decision to make' when he left the character. The 60-year-old went on to express his regret after learning that Apu was often cited when hate crimes were committed against South Asian people. 'It became a slur when convenience store guys were stabbed or shot or robbed, you know,' he noted. 'There's all this other stereotyping and things that have teeth in them that affect people of colour in this country. So, while Apu might not be the most important thing in the world, it's a window into something quite important.' Azaria had previously apologised for voicing Apu. In 2021 he told the Armchair Expert podcast that: 'I was speaking at my son's school, I was talking to the Indian kids there because I wanted to get their input. A 17-year-old ... he's never even seen The Simpsons but knows what Apu means. It's practically a slur at this point. All he knows is that is how his people are thought of and represented to many people in this country.' 'I really do apologise,' Azaria continued. 'It's important. I apologise for my part in creating that and participating in that. Part of me feels like I need to go to every single Indian person in this country and personally apologise. And sometimes I do.'
