Director Shoojit Sircar, who considers the films of Satyajit Ray as his Bible, feels the maestro may have designed posters and composed music for his movies himself “out of compulsion”, as no one else would have been able to do full justice to the spirit ofhis work.

Delivering the Satyajit Ray Memorial lecture at the 27th Kolkata International Film Festival, Sircar said he cannot work with someone who has not watched the works of the legend.

“Ray is called a multi-talented director...But this may be out of compulsion. He did his own posters because probably he thought others won’t realise it in the same way. He did music in his films as he was not sure if he could explain the context of the music in its entirety to another person. He did not have any casting director either,” Sircar said. The director said that in several of his films, including October (2018), there are silent moments inspired by Ray’s works.

“There are so many jargons about cinema – art, commercial, etc. For me, Ray is more commercial. Someone who would give me lots of positivity and optimism, even if it is a tragedy. Remember the scene of the death of Apu’s mother (in Aparajito)?” he said, referring to its subtlety.

Sircar talked about another scene in Pather Panchali (1955), Ray’s maiden film and the first in the Apu Trilogy. Young Apu and his elder sister Durga were following a sweet seller on a village path. “They are not running behind him to buy something. It is just the hope that they will finally be given sweets. It is just that hope, the everyday reality that is what I discovered in Ray’s works,” the Piku director said, adding, “Many people abroad say there is an element of mysticism in his films. I try to find where is this mysticism? I always think when you are aware of the reality, there lies the mystery. It was there in Ray’s films,” Sircar, who brought references to Ray in Piku (2015), said.

Sircar said he had never studied art and literature. “This man brought me into my senses. In many of my films, I try to adapt his expressions,” he added.