When I recently saw the newly restored versions of Satyajit Ray’s Apu Trilogy, a wave of emotion swept up over me as I watched Apu grow up, become a writer and lose his family.

Though I had seen them all before, I had never quite appreciated that these movies, the first of which was released in 1955, about the life of a poor family in 1920s British India could feel so universal. Perhaps I am just getting older, but the movies now convey something deeply true that was lost on me when I watched them in my 20s — the tension the characters feel between their sense of duty to tradition and family and their pursuit of personal goals.

In the third movie, “Apur Sansar” or “The World of Apu,” the main character visits a village to attend the wedding of his friend’s cousin, who is the bride. When the groom’s bridal party shows up, the family realizes the groom is mentally unstable. But the bride, Aparna, has to be married because the auspicious hour for her wedding is now and if she misses the window, tradition dictates that she will stay single for the rest of her life. So, the family beseeches Apu to become the groom.

Apu is young, full of optimism and has other ideas for his life. He wants to write and is working on his semi-autobiographical first novel. The family’s request confuses him at first, but when the family presses him, he gets angry and admonishes them. “Are you living in the Dark Ages? This is all a waste of time,” he tells them.