Satyajit and Sandip Ray

Roshmila Bhattacharya (MUMBAI MIRROR; May 2, 2020)

March 30, 1992, was a red-letter day as Satyajit Ray became the first Indian filmmaker to be awarded an honorary Oscar for his contribution to the cinematic universe. And the much-coveted award actually travelled to a Kolkata hospital and his bedside because by then, the auteur was too ill to travel to Los Angeles, even though he so desperately wanted to.

“The timing was unfortunate. Baba was slipping in and out of consciousness, barely coherent most of the time. One day, when he was slightly better, Dr Bakshi suggested we take a chance and rush the team, that was already in the city, into the hospital. The ICU is a restricted area, so we kept it quiet, with only a few people present, successfully managing to elude the media. Baba graciously accepted the statuette, calling it the best achievement of his moviemaking career. He had grown up on American films and admitted to having learnt his craft through them. I was close to tears listening to him speak,” reminisces Ray’s filmmaker son, Sandip.

Soon after, the master slipped into a coma, and couldn’t even read the congratulatory telegrams from Audrey Hepburn and Billy Wilder, among others, which Sandip da carried into his hospital room. He didn’t even see the televised show, quietly slipping out of the world on April 23. However, almost three decades later, Satyajit Ray remains unforgettable, the popularity of his films growing with every year, and not just back home.

“Pather Panchali continues to fascinate Americans even though it’s a world apart while Jalsaghar has attained cult status in France despite being a very Indian experience, rooted in Bengal and its now-defunct zamindari culture. It confounded even baba in his lifetime, but I guess it was his humanitarian vision and the simplicity of his story-telling that struck a chord with audiences across the world and made these subjects universal. He never followed trends, yet his films have stood the test of time, and remain relevant,” reasons the younger Ray, who filmed his father’s last screenplay, Uttoran, after his untimely demise. “His dream of turning the dice-playing portion in the Mahabharat into a film however didn’t materialise and nor did The Aliens, with Marlon Brando and Peter Sellers,” Sandipda rues.

However, half a century later, his father’s fantasy adventure comedy, Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne, remains a favourite with children of successive generations, even though the animated psychedelic dance of the ghosts was shot on camera because back in the ’60s, the term VFX was largely unknown. “Baba didn’t even live to see DVDs and VCDs, but was enchanted that a small CD disc could hold an entire symphony,” recounts Sandipda, admitting that one of his biggest regrets is that despite prancing around with Rabi Ghosh and Tapen Chatterjee in Bilaspur and Birbhum, he could not go for the film’s Rajasthan schedule because of school.

He imagines the miracles his father could have worked with computer graphics with a series like Feluda, even though the Indian Holmes, to this day, remains tech-unsavvy. “That’s how his fans want it — that Feluda should know how to use a cell phone but not carry one-and I wouldn’t dare disappoint them,” says Sandip da, who like any Bengali boy, grew up on the adventures of private investigator Prodosh Chandra Mitter, and went on to film his favourite Feluda story Royal Bengal Rahasya. He is happy that children, even today, are reading these short stories and novels, the first of which appeared in the Bengali children’s magazine, Sandesh, in ’65.

Prod him on his favourite Ray films, and apart from the Apu trilogy and the musical Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne , Sandipda lists out his father’s first colour film, Kanchenjungha, which like the mountain range takes on new interpretations with every viewing, his last film, the sublime, deeply personal Agantuk, along with the multilayered Aranyer Din Ratri and Jana Aranya. “Of course, like baba often said, Charulata was his least flawed film, a jigsaw puzzle where every piece fit beautifully and perfectly,” says Sandip da, and you can almost imagine him smiling in his Kolkata home.

Today, Ray’s birth centenary year kicks off. It comes at a time when the Coronavirus pandemic has locked us in our homes, slowed down our lives and made us think and reflect on concerns like environment and public health. A time when a film like Ganashatru, made way back in 1990, still seems so topical. “Baba was struggling with health problems at the time, having suffered a heart attack and undergone a bypass surgery. When he was finally allowed to get back to making movies, the doctor insisted he shoot only indoors. Disappointed, because he loved the great outdoors, baba zeroed in on his favourite Henrik Ibsen play, An Enemy Of The People, which he believed could be transplanted to an Indian setting and contemporised. Today, it’s alarming how he could forsee the future, three decades ago,” Sandipda marvels.

That’s the magic of Satyajit Ray, a man who saw tomorrow, whose films, a 100 years from now, will continue to speak to us.

On a visit to Mumbai, the legendary Soumitra Chatterjee, spoke about his experiences of working with Satyajit Ray, friendship with Shashi Kapoor and why he stayed away from Hindi movies
Sreeparna Sengupta (BOMBAY TIMES; April 24, 2019)

For Soumitra Chatterjee, whose prolific career spanning over six decades, saw him as the most enduring face of Oscar winning master filmmaker, Satyajit Ray’s movies, it is his immense work in field of theatre, that has found him in the city of Mumbai time and again. However, Hindi movies have never been a lure for this legendary Indian actor.

Recently, a captive audience at the packed Nehru Center auditorium, soaked in the aura of the 86-year-old thespian at a cultural programme, organised by South Mumbai’s oldest Tagore music school. Later, over a more relaxed one-on-one conversation, he lets on, “Poetry has been very dear to me from an early age. That’s a legacy of my parents. It was my father who gave me the idea of doing poetry recitals. And my mother unconsciously sowed the plant for the love of poetry that I have.”

The actor’s love for theatre also developed at a very young age, much before the arc lights took over. In fact, it was theatre and the common love for world cinema that saw a friendship develop between late actor Shashi Kapoor and him, “Shashi was also into theatre from the very beginning. And although he had to bend and mend his ways for the Hindi film industry, he was always aware of what was happening in theatre and cinema around the world. Later, as a producer, Shashi produced some remarkable films.”

When probed on a black-and-white photograph of the two dapper actors in their hey days, which he had shared on social media, he says, “That was taken in Berlinale. We had become friends since the time we did films like, Charulata and Shakespeare Wallah. Both the films were shown in Berlin in 1965. So, the photograph that you are referring to was taken then. And as far as I remember, it was shot by none other than Satyajit Ray. Both of us were very young at that time and Shashi was the ever-handsome, charming and witty person,” adds the actor, who was no less a heartthrob of Bengali cinema then. Incidentally, both their films won top awards at the Berlin film festival, that year.

‘Balraj Sahni is the best that Indian cinema has seen’
Given his association with the Hindi film industry, ask him why he has never been seen in a Hindi film, like some of his contemporaries — Suchitra Sen, Sharmila Tagore and Uttam Kumar, he says, “Frankly, I was not keen on doing Hindi films. For the single reason, that the kind of films I started liking were those of filmmakers like Vittorio De Sica, Federico Fellini or other new-age filmmakers that opened windows for the kind of films that I wanted to do. Although from an early age, I used to see many Hindi films. And actors like Dilip Kumar Saab and also, Raj Kapoor to an extent, were favourites of mine. But the more I think about an sub-conscious influence on me, only one name comes to my mind — Balraj Sahni. He is the best that Indian cinema has seen and I still adore him as my idol.”

‘I don’t know why Satyajit Ray liked me’
Introduced to cinema lovers the world over as Apu of Apur Sansar on May 1, 1959, he has vivid memories of his first day at shoot with Satyajit Ray (it was his 27th death anniversary on April 23). Reflecting on his first meeting with the maestro, he says, “I was initially taken for an interview with Mr. Ray when he was looking for someone to play Apu for the second part of the Apu trilogy. But I was too grown up and tall for the adolescent Apu. And I wasn’t selected. But much later, after I had been working with him for two-three years, I came to know that he had made up his mind to make the third part of the trilogy, after he saw me. Over time, as we collaborated more, we developed a rapport and he started giving me a lot of freedom into the way I wanted to do a role. It was exciting to shoot with him.” Pausing to reflect, his voice trails off with a shy questioning laugh, “...And I don’t know why he liked me.”

‘Ray used to draw sketches of the make-up and look before actually going into the shoot’
When the conversation steers to Charulata, his voice swells with pride, “That was a great film. Satyajit Ray always felt that was his most perfect film. In fact, as a student of Bengali Honours, I knew the original story, Noshto Nir extremely well. It was one of the greatest stories written by Tagore. Ray used to draw sketches of the make-up and look before actually going into the shoot. He did that for Charulata as well and sent me a table piano, long before the shooting started. I would practice on it as it was necessary to do that for shooting a song in the film,

‘Every conversation with Ray was a learning’
Chatterjee’s collaboration with Ray spanned across 14 films, including masterpieces like Aranyer Din Ratri, Devi, Ghare Baire, Ashani Sanket among others, showcasing the actor as one of the most versatile in Indian cinema.

“Every conversation with Ray was a learning. He was my mentor, a kind of teacher, but unobtrusively so. He always behaved like a friend, more like an elder friend. And even today he has remained an inspiration,” signs off the legend, who has worked with filmmakers like Mrinal Sen, Tapan Sinha, Goutam Ghose, Rituparno Ghosh. His most recent works include films like Shonar Pahar, Mayurakshi, Basu Poribar in which he was cast with Aparna Sen after 19 long years. 

Neha Maheshwri Bhagat (BOMBAY TIMES; April 19, 2015)