Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri (MUMBAI MIRROR; March 26, 2020)

I first met Nemai Ghosh sometime in 2007-’08, soon after joining HarperCollins as an editor. Over the next 12 years, the relationship developed into one of great mutual fondness. Of course, I knew I was in the presence of a legend – one who had been the still photographer of none other than Satyajit Ray.

From his first engagement with Ray on the sets of Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne, Nemai-da had captured the master at home and on sets, till Ray passed away in 1992. The filmmaker had said: “For close on 25 years, Nemai Ghosh has been photographing me in action and repose – a sort of Boswell with a camera than a pen.”

Not surprisingly, being an editor, I was keen on publishing a book with him on his association with Ray. He had published it in Bengali, and I was privileged to bring it out in translation— Manik-da: Memories Of Satyajit Ray, that had vignettes of his relationship with Ray, interspersed with 50 gorgeous black-and-white images (he was a stickler for shooting in black and white).

The book went into several reprints. Nemai-da would discuss a number of other ideas with me. It will remain an eternal regret that many of them did not materialise. But every visit to his home in Kalighat Road, Kolkata, was filled with hours of poring over his exhaustive collection of photographs. There was a series he had shot of the Italian master Michelangelo Antonioni and was keen be published as a book. Imagine! Then, there were incredible images of Ray in colour – another project which did not work out. But the conversations never ceased.

He spoke about his work in documenting theatre in Kolkata, published as a book by Seagull, Dramatic Moments: Photographs and Memories of Calcutta Theatre from the Sixties to the Nineties. Nemai-da spoke fondly about his association with Utpal Dutt’s Little Theatre Group—he had acted in their famous plays, Angar, Ferari Fouj and Othello, among others. He showed me his awe-inspiring collection of photographs of Uttam Kumar, his images of the Golden Temple, his work with coal miners and in documenting the tribal heritage of India.

We did end up working together on a couple of books. One was a collaboration with Paresh Maity, The World on a Canvas, of the master painter at work, being captured on film by another master. The other was his dream project. Nemai Ghosh’s Kolkata was a visual tribute to the city he had lived and worked in all his life. In the foreword, Amitabh Bachchan said, “A picture, a photograph, may be a still in its finite form, but when it moved despite being motionless, it may well be called a ‘Nemai Ghosh’.! … having spent several of my early years in [Kolkata] I can only admire the virtuosity with which Nemai Da has captured the visuals.”

It may sound incredible that someone who became known as one of India’s finest photographers had never clicked a photograph in his life till he met Satyajit Ray. As Nemai-da told me, “Let alone photography, I did not even know how to click a camera.” It was a strange twist of fate that put a camera in his hand – a friend had found a fixed-lens Canon camera that someone had left behind in a taxi. He owed Nemai-da Rs 200 and on the spur of the moment offered to write off the loan in exchange for the camera. And a legend was born.

I last met Nemai-da in January this year. He had just suffered a bad fall and broken his leg. He was in considerable pain but his enthusiasm was undiminished. Like always he began by scolding me for not publishing another of his dream projects —a book of portraits. He had even begun planning an event around the book, as the images had been selected and it was a matter of just putting it together.

Goodbye, Nemai-da. I wish we had a few more collaborations to our credit. But it has been a privilege knowing you, and being able to work with you. I guess it is customary to say that I will miss you – but I won’t. I will carry you with me in the world of images you have gifted me.


Filmmaker Mrinal Sen, caught on camera by Ghosh


Ray caught in a candid moment; The City of Joy as featured in Nemai Ghosh’s Kolkata (left); another photo from the book (right)