How did he enter my life? I am after all from an Industrial town in TamilNadu exposed to films in Tamil, Malayalam, Hindi and of course English. Bengali has no place even remotely here. Shantaram and Rajkapoor were the only great directors, according to my father. From books and journals, I had a very vague idea about him and his films. An artist turned director was another attraction. And I began to read every available sentence about him. And I didn’t know when I am going to see his movie. When I was studying at the Presidency College, Chennai, I came across an advertisement that there was a screening of ’Jalsaghar’ at a small theatre near Central Station as a morning show. Wow! In a metropolitan city like Madras there will be a large rush for the movie, I thought and went to the theatre to book tickets in advance. The old theatre was screening some vintage MGR film then. The manager refused to book tickets in advance and after persuasion he gave us two tokens for the show. The day came. I was very much thrilled to see my first Ray film and in the balcony the only persons were two of us. In the groundfloor there was probably a small crowd.
Jalsaghar opened a new way of viewing a movie. The plight of a ’retired’ King to arrange a dance programme in his ’palace’ evoked mixed feelings. The strong visuals of the music performances, the lone Maharaja, the lean Palace elephant basking in the torturous sun were all very new to me, but I identified it as my own kind of cinema. Pather Panchali came next and this time at a morning show at Krishnaveni. This time I did not book the tickets in advance. The story of Durga and Appu was not at all new to me, as I had already read the novel and reviews on the movie. I cherished every moment of the film. I knew every character, but the way of filming from a debut director who created history afterwards was a lesson for me to learn. The shots, the lingering music of Pt.Ravishankar, the excellent acting by newcomers and kids, and especially by Chunibala Devi, who acted as the aunt, threw me from the seats. And afterwards I was staying at Purasawakkam, and in the guise of preparing for the IAS, I was seeing movies in regular basis and then came Shatranj Ke Khilari at nearby Abhirami, and every night I was at the theatre. The movie was in Urdu with an enviable cast of Amjad Khan, Sanjeev Kumar, Saeed Jaffrey, Sir Richard Attenborough, Shabana, Farook Sheikh and the commentary was by the Big B. The flavour was Lucknowi and everything was quite different from a Ray film, I have heard of. I read how he sketched the sets, costumes and saw the extensive sketches in magazines. I began to collect every available book on Ray and became a character like ’Hungarian Professor’ of Jeffrey Archer. I read about his grandfather and his father who were pioneers in printing technology of the days and editors, authors and publishers of childrens’ literature and magazines like Sandesh. I even own a copy of nonsense verses by his dad.
The next phase with Ray started when I returned to Coimbatore, joined Law and involved in a group of film enthusiasts and we started our first film club, (Yes, many were to follow). With meticulous planning we brought the 16mm prints of Apu Trilogy and Charulatha, to celebrate a kind of film festival. We went aghast after seeing the movies Pather Panchali, Aparajito and Apur Sansar. The first thing that struck me after seeing the three movies at a stretch was the depiction of different kinds of deaths in the trilogy. The aunt, Durga, father....every character upto Sharmila Tagore died with a different style, different music and different shots. The scenes of Varanasi, the human relations, the railway tracks, the village marriage, the flying crows, the music themes everything glimmered with novelty unknown to an entire audience. Charulatha was another wonder. The swing, the poetry, lazy afternoons, the Bengali aristocratic flavour, the windows, the actors everything overflowed with beauty creamed with aesthetic topping.
It was a fashion at that time to condemn his films even without seeing them by a group of people from public life and media. There was a charge that he sells poverty to western countries for the sake of awards. The then Rajya Sabha member , actress Nargis accused him with the same charge. I then wrote a long letter to ’Screen’ countering her statement and it got published, and I was floating on the clouds, sincerely believing Ray would have surely read it.
The Telecom revolution just started. I had a secret desire to contact Ray through STD and have a talk. I began to visualise the scene of Ray talking with me from his room, loaded with books, his piano, reams of paper, Ash tray, his pipe and even his chair, which were all etched in my mind through various photographs and sketches. Even the conversation, the questions everything were predetermined, but alas, the shy coward in me, never dialled that particular number.
Doordarshan was my main source of Ray films apart from the film societies. Many classics like Seemabaddha, Jana Aranya, Mahanagar, Aranyar Din Rathri and Goopi Gayen Bagha Bayen were available for viewing in DD and I recorded them. Other films were available in video formats and I began to collect them through whoever visited Calcutta. Jana Aranya and Aranyar... were my favourites and again and again I was seeing them. Like Aranyar.. we were a gang who visited forests and stayed in forest guest houses and characters enacted by Rabi Ghosh and others were so soaked in reality. And what a group of actors Ray selected for his movies! Soumitra Chatterjee, Deepankar Day, Madhabi Mukerjee, Utpal Dutt, Sharmila Tagore and even Jaya Bhaduri in Mahanagar... they were all brilliant. Somehow I had no great fascination for Uttam Kumar after seeing Nayak. Ray was never a political man, but I was amazed at his courage for making Heerak Rajar Deshe, the sequal to Goopi.. During emergency days, even when leftist and radical directors kept mum without raising a finger against the atrocities, Ray came with this excellent parody on the then rulers.
When Ray converted to colour films, the title cards showed the name of Prasad Laboratory, Chennai as the processors. As I was a frequent visitor to the lab, I began to enquire who will be present for the grading of his films, and I was shocked to hear that the Director will personally accompany the cinematographer during these days, though it was not necessary. So, I have been missing the great man who was my lifetime favourite at the same compound all these years. I asked my friends there, what sort of a person was he. And you should have heard the reply. ’Oh, that man. He always loiters in the verandah, when the roles are not ready for grading, with a pipe in his hand. Sometimes he stands on the main road just watching the people. He travels either by bus or auto.’ And this was unbelievable for such a great personality, but that is why his characters moved with utter reality . And now to the comments ...