Summary
Seeing Durga attack Apu, Sarbjaya runs to intervene, pulling Durga off him. "You're too old for a toy box!" she yells at Durga and orders her to go find the calf. When Apu calls his sister an ass, she scoffs at the fact that he has dressed himself up as a prince. Durga then teases him more, sticking her tongue out at him and making obscene gestures. Apu chases his sister through the forest, then a large field.
The scene shifts and we see Indir arriving back at the family compound. Sarbajaya greets her and Indir tells her she hasn't been doing well and wanted to spend her last days in the family home. Sarbajaya sends her away, but Indir puts her things down and sits on the steps for a moment. "Let me rest a little," says Indir. She asks for some water, but Sarbajaya tells her to fetch it herself.
Indir gets up and gets herself some water, hobbling along and smiling at Sarbajaya. She struggles to pour herself some water, then gets up, takes her things, and leaves. Sarbajaya watches her go, saying nothing.
Meanwhile, Durga and Apu look at a large electrical grid, curiously. Wading through some water, Durga presses her ear up against the tower and listens to a monotone noise coming from within, the sound of electricity. Durga then wanders through some tall grass as Apu follows. Apu loses Durga and runs through the grass alone, eventually finding her. After she tells him to eat a stalk of some kind, she hears something and the siblings go running to see a passing train.
Later, Apu and Durga walk through the forest towards their home. As the camera moves through the woods, we see Indir sitting on the ground resting, unseen by Durga and Apu. The siblings find a small calf and go to walk it home, when suddenly they notice Indir, who is in bad shape. Durga shakes her aunt, but Indir has died.
Durga stands, horrified, and she and Apu run back home, dropping Indir's bowl in the stream nearby. The scene shifts and we see a group carrying Indir's body to burial.
The next day, Durga and Apu watch a man making an announcement in a square. Hari tells Sarbajaya that he will look for work in a nearby market town. He then sets out on a journey, bidding farewell to his wife. Sarbajaya watches him go and bows her head in prayer. As Hari leaves, Durga and Apu see him and Durga tells Apu to ask him for money. She then runs to join the other children as they look at a device.
The scene shifts and we see Sarbajaya asking Durga to go fetch molasses so that Apu can have sweetened rice. Suddenly we see Apu running home with a letter, which he throws into the air. It's a letter from Hari and Sarbajaya reads it to herself; its says, "Unfortunately the farmer has recently been bereaved. Therefore there is no work for me here. But don't worry, I will try to earn the money we need for the repairs...and then I will return...Whatever God does is for the best."
Durga notices that her mother looks upset, and we see an old man arriving at the house begging for money. Discreetly, Durga brings him some coins.
That night we see Sarbajaya sewing while her two children sleep. She can hear the sound of the train in the distance, then kisses her children and puts the blanket over them. She then takes out some plates one by one.
The next morning, we see Sarbajaya leaving to go buy food and returning to the compound with a sack of grains.
A marching band plays a rousing song in a town square. Various townspeople enjoy the music, including Apu, who watches intently. Nearby the mean-spirited aunt gives people orders as they prepare food for Ranu's wedding. We see Durga sitting nearby as Ranu prepares for the wedding, washing herself and putting on various adornments.
The scene shifts and we see one of Sarbajaya's friends looking in a pot at Sarbajaya's house, disappointed.
Analysis
Characters often go back and forth between playfulness and fighting, apologies and aggression. This happens in Sarbajaya's relationship to Indir, and also between Durga and Apu. The line is thin between affection and resentment, especially with resources so scarce and so little to do in their rural existence. One minute Durga is beating Apu up and making obscene gestures at him, and the next minute they are chasing each other through a forest and a field, as gentle music plays.
A great tragedy occurs in this section when Indir returns to the family home and asks to be taken in, anticipating that she is in the final days of her life and would like to die at home. Rather than welcome the old woman back and apologize for not treating her with more compassion, Sarbajaya kicks her out once again. In this moment, we see that Sarbajaya's resentment about how her life has turned out exceeds her ability to exhibit common decency and drives her to turn away those to whom she should be giving love. When Indir dies in the forest soon after, we see just how misguided Sarbajaya's rejection was, how it deprived an elderly woman of a comfortable place in which to pass away.
In this section we see for the first time characters encountering the modernizing world around them with curiosity and interest. When they run through the field, Durga and Apu encounter an electrical grid that seems to be making strange noises. The children press their ears up to the grid to hear its strange song, and the image highlights just how far the two children are from affluence and signifiers of modernity. While their existence is wrapped up in an understanding of the natural world and with the ancient and the spiritual, within walking distance is a huge mechanism of contemporary innovation. It hums in the same way that a priest might sing a chant, but it is foreign to the two children. Similarly, the passing train represents the promise of a modern world to which Durga and Apu are close but do not have access.
Throughout, the film centers around a very simple conflict: the question of how the family will make money to live. Sarbajaya is disappointed time and time again by her husband's lack of motivation when it comes to making money, and she takes her frustration out on her other family members. Durga is just a child and has no concept of money, choosing to give it away or ask for it, without thinking much about its worth. This is typified by the moment when the beggar comes to the door and she surreptitiously gives him some money. While the conflict of the film is that the family has no money, we see that Durga is innocent of their dire situation. Like her father, she believes that God will provide, while Sarbajaya frets and worries.
Durga may be a free-spirited and kind-hearted young woman, spared from the humiliations of poverty by her playful attitude and compassionate nature, but we also see the ways that she begins to understand her own poverty. When she attends Ranu's wedding, we see her smile at her friend as she gets prepared for the feast to come, but there is a sadness in her eyes. As she watches the priest speak to Ranu during the ceremony, Durga seems uncharacteristically stone-faced and serious, clearly feeling the pain of the fact that her good friend is enjoying a lavish wedding with massive amounts of food, while she is still without resources or a potential husband.
