In this season of the Asian Education Podcast, Edward Vickers introduces films that deal with themes related to education or the experience of youth in Asian societies.

In the first episode, Edward discusses Aparajito, by the famous Bengali director, Satyajit Ray (1921-1992), the central film in Ray’s Apu Trilogy. This film portrays the boyhood of Apu, a child from an impoverished Bengali family of the Brahmin (priestly) caste. It deals with tensions between tradition and modernity, the rural and the urban, common to societies across Asia and beyond. We follow Apu as he enrols first in a village school, and then (as a scholarship student) in a high school in the Bengali metropolis of Calcutta. The film sensitively explores what this journey means both for Apu himself, and for his family, in particular through its depiction of his relationship with his illiterate mother.

The film can be viewed online here: https://archive.org/details/aparajito-apu-trilogy-pt.-2

Suggested further reading: Biswas, M. (ed.) (2006). Apu and after: Revisiting Ray's cinema. Ray, S (1994). My Years with Apu. Viking. Robinson, A (2003). Satyajit Ray: The Inner Eye: The Biography of a Master Film-Maker. I. B. Tauris.