Sounds of a Transformative World within the Home

One wonders about the ramifications of the disruptive intrusion caused by the jarring sound of an electric generator in renowned Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray’s (1921–92) award-winning film Jalsaghar (‘The Music Room’, 1958), appearing in an otherwise lyrical and nostalgic auditory setting. In this sequence, the landowner-protagonist Biswambhar Roy is enjoying a Hindustani classical Vina recital by a musician in his music room while the faint sound of a motor enters the room, gradually becoming prominent. The landowner asks his porter, ‘What is the sound I hear?’ with a slight furrowing of his eyebrows. He is obviously disturbed. The porter replies that it is the sound of a generator coming from the house of his nouveau riche neighbour Mahim Ganguly who has recently got electricity. The music is paused while the landowner ascends to the rooftop and the new-fangled sound of the generator engulfs the landscape around his dark and desolate palace. Symptoms of modernity thus appear at the cost of disturbing and destabilizing the archaic ecology of sound at the protagonist’s home, suggesting a new sonic reordering. We later hear the recurring sound of the generator in a number of sequences and with each occurrence, the contemporary and modern world of rapid and tumultuous change casts a darker shadow over the traditional coziness of the home.