Children

Ray’s Fable and a Big Game

Short Film Analysis

The cinema’s characteristic forte is its ability to capture and communicate the intimacies of the human mind… The cinema is superbly equipped to trace the growth of a person or a situation.
Satyajit Ray

A child’s mind – impressionable, unbiased, bold, colourful and spirited – picks up the colours of this patterned and cemented world, crossing the maze, chasing dreams, breaking away, yet gradually getting engulfed by it wholly. How come? And Why?

Ray’s short film – Two: A Film Fable (1964), twelve minutes long, black and white, without any dialogues – shows ‘how’, leaving the ‘why’ for the viewer to find out.

For a better understanding, watch the film before reading further –

Story

Fable, a short story that tells a moral truth, often using animals as characters, is given a twist by Satyajit Ray for here we aren’t told anything, just shown and we don’t see animals but toys that are class-conscious.

With two little kids as the protagonists and only people in the film, it makes a striking portrayal of the class difference in our societies that nurtures and feeds, without fail, every individual, even a child, with a prejudiced ideology.

The little kids in the film, one up in a mansion and the other outside his thatched hut, start a competition of showing off their toys to each other. Soon the privileged kid starts to overpower the poor kid by showing his latest toys one after the other; he proudly and pompously uses his air gun to shoot down the poor kid’s kite, defeating him in this invisible war-like game.

The rich kid turns to wonder what he should do next – his luxurious life acts heavily on him as he is hardly interested in playing anything, getting distracted every time to hop on the other toy train.

Though the rich kid thought he had won the game, he notices how the poor kid has gone back to his first toy – the bamboo flute. The rich kid in his big mansion with barred windows, ample toys and other luxuries feels confused in the end.

Analysis

A chance encounter between a rich and poor child that quickly moves from a childish display of their toys to a game of power politics, Ray’s fable presents a strong image of a divided and degraded society.

The film shows the truth of inequality – nurtured by greed, leading to decadence – revealing how the class that suffers the most is the one which invariably suffers to simply survive.

India in the 60s, apart from facing many internal problems, also fought wars with China (in 1962) and Pakistan (in 1965), thus, impacting the overall growth of the new nation. Two: A Film Fable highlights this stunted growth by showing the disparity between the two kids, reminding people about their responsibilities as a free citizen of a free nation.

The rich kid is not just rich, he is self-indulgent and hedonistic; home alone after attending his birthday party, he saunters around in the big empty home, drinking Coca-Cola, chewing bubble-gum, not sure which toy, out of the lot, he should play with. Meanwhile, the poor kid is playing his bamboo flute, walking round and round outside his hut, not minding the glaring sun.

Bamboo flute vs. toy trumpet, small drum vs. battery-powered monkey drummer toy, a mask, bow and arrow vs. couple of fancy masks, swords, spears and guns – both the kids don’t realise participating in power politics as they don’t understand it, but because they belong to such different classes, separated by a giant gap, their casual showing-off game inadvertently turns into power politics.

When the poor child comes back and quietly starts to fly a kite, the rich kid – who was till now looking down at the poor kid from his first-floor window – looks up at the sky, surprised to see the poor kid’s kite soaring high. Wondering, he gets his toy rifle and shoots down the kite. The rich kid is unabashedly happy about his actions here.

Satisfied now, the rich kid goes back to playing with his toys, switching every automatic toy on simultaneously, making a lot of noise, over which he soon hears the poor kid’s flute once again. While the poor kid calmly plays the flute, the rich kid stands still looking nonplussed.

In a very subtle manner Ray’s film criticises the class politics, the capitalist outlook and booming culture of consumerism by portraying how these ideologies sink in the society affecting one and all and especially instilling flawed values in the children.

Today these two kids – who are still very much present as the disparity has only intensified – will not have such an encounter through the window anymore, thanks to the mobile phones and social media age.

The adults have joined too for they started the big game, everyone’s playing it, my toys vs your toys. And whosoever wins, not knowing what else to do, restarts the game.

And the fable continues…

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The Knight’s Missing But The Horse’s Here

Posted on September 3, 2023 by Jagriti Rumi Books For Children Colouring Horse Mountains Narrating Nature Picture Books Readables The Horse Library Village

Feature

***“Here comes the horse and the sun, doo-doo-doo-doo.”***
**[Source – Pixabay]**

Nature’s furious, the clouds are anger-dancing, the trees are trembling, surrendering, oh trees you say, oh here the mighty mountains are kneeling, falling flat, many many streams erupting singing jingling hymns, begging for mercy, but the nature god has turned its back on us.

Charu, eight, hears the elders saying such things, quite animatedly, and she thinks of a solution immediately, “they should simply walk to the side where the nature god is looking… and talk.”

But now, here she rushes past them all, there she climbs the mud wall, then the tree, and then gets scolded by her mother. Ya-hoy! She lands splashing a puddle and there she runs away.

When the rain stopped, all the children in the village came out to play, seeing this, all the frogs high jumped away, leaving the centre stage for them.

Not lamenting over the loss of time – most still couldn’t tell time, it didn’t exist from them – the kids were happy with this break; they didn’t miss the school walls, exercises, question-answers, fill in the blanks, class-tests or the teachers.

Books were all packed nicely, kept safely in the trunk, kept under the bed, in that room which the children rarely entered.

But lo, what is that sound, oh, who is’t cometh this way? Charu stares at the turn, the fog lands quickly to add to this mystery.

Through the cracked, broken, muddy trail that was once a kacha road, that now rejected vehicular traffic bluntly, who dares to come to their village?

And then sauntered the Knight or so did Charu thought, but the Knight was missing, rather a humble yet dashing horse emerged when the fog folded itself up like opening curtains; treading carefully, neighing, the horse moved, making sure the trail didn’t deceive him.

Charu, amazed, rushed-then-slowed-down, towards the horse, the village kids followed her.

“Look, the horse is carrying something”, said someone and Charu shouted, “oh, it is coming our way, it is coming our way.”

The horse neighed and the kids thought it smiled; they clapped but then became quiet.

Stopping right in front of the group, the horse said, “Kids, are you doing well?”, and then immediately shouted in excitement, “Yes-yes, for I welcome you to the horse library.”

Charu and her friends went round and round the horse, “these books”, “are they for us”, “picture books”, “oh, yes-yes kids”, “this one is about animals”, “hey, look the seven wonders of the world”, “see, told you Octopus has eight arms”, “and legs?”

The children sat around the horse, who asked them to read leisurely as he stood grazing the fresh green grass. And the children sat reading different books, some together, some by themselves, quietly travelling forward, backward in time and space, cherishing the moment.

Some pack-full of hours later, the horse left, promising them to return in some days, hoping they would finish reading the books by then, colouring the black-white drawings, sharing each with the other.

He had also said, “and when I come back next, I will bring a fresh lot of readables… because kids, vegetables and readables are very good for health.”

Charu, since then, has lived many lives, visited the world in eighty days, went on an expedition to the south pole, and also fought for reading and colouring the underwater world with her village friends.

Aunties with toddlers and cows, goats and dogs, and some oldies have also now joined their semi-circle party, offering them to gather in this or that courtyard if it is raining or is too cold or too windy outside.

They all remain, to this day, good members of the horse library.

When the horse returned (Charu not missing the knight) with the new books (the readables), each book appeared to be shinning, announcing the arrival of the saviour, the hero, the magician, the joker, the pied piper and many others from all over the world.

It is a beautiful bright day, at some good distance a sheet of clouds is slowly covering the sky, the semi-circle party has gathered again to read and narrate, the horse, happy and calm, stands nearby grazing and some folks, passing by, are talking about the nature.

This post is inspired by a real life fantastic story (that is still unfolding), read about it here –

Uttarakhand: How The Horse Library Started To Promote Reading In Remote Villages

‘Ghoda library’ trots up to remote Uttarakhand villages with books for kids, parents to join in

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