The first shot of Pather Panchali (Song of the little road)

by Sabyasachi Roy

Sunday, October 27, 1952
He got ready to capture the first shot of his dream . . .
With a song in his heart
and a unique ability to handle silence
he wanted to capture and explore the complexities
behind the simplest ordinariness
He wanted to capture the hushed stillness of dusk
in a Bengali village
when the wind drops
and turns the ponds into sheets of glass
the smoke from the ovens
settles in wispy trails over the landscape
and stars that blink and swirl in the thickets . . .
Standing in the midst of gently-swaying fauna of feathery Kaas
Apu and Durga are seeing a train for the first time