Looking for Mr Ray

Illustration/Uday Mohite

I have a long and intense relationship with Kolkata. This time, I wanted to go on a pilgrimage to see Satyajit Ray's (1921-1992) home and his famous study. Gratitude to Vipin Vijay, Dean, Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute, SRFTI, and team for inviting me to conduct a curation workshop for Arcurea, the international seminar on the archiving, curation and restoration of films at SRFTI Kolkata, in the first place. On this, more in my next column; workshop done, I greedily took in Kolkata. It now has metro stations named Satyajit Ray and Ritwik Ghatak, and my respect for the city shot to the stratosphere.

I arrived at 1/1 Bishop Lefroy Road, a yellow, colonial building, and was welcomed by Sandip Ray, prolific filmmaker and Satyajit Ray's son. He has directed about 37 films and series - about the same number as his father - including adaptations of Satyajit Ray's stories, some featuring Ray's popular characters Feluda and Professor Shonku. If the place was a museum, I could just buy a ticket, gawp and take photos. But this is a family's private home, and I'm extremely apologetic about intruding on Mr Ray's privacy and time. By way of justification for this intrusion, I share that I'm a lifelong fan of Satyajit Ray, a film curator and have curated Satyajit Ray's films over the years.

A Satyajit Ray, His Contemporaries and Legacy retrospective for the Toronto International Film Festival's TIFF Cinematheque in 2022, Devi (The Goddess) at the Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum in January this year, Jalsaghar (The Music Room) at the British Film Institute when I was Curator for their year-long India on Film in 2017, and more. Sandip Ray remains unfailingly gracious, chats amiably and offers me tea. We chat about his current work - even in the middle of making films, he is always busy with the huge responsibility of preserving and digitising Satyajit Ray's archive.

A creative legacy like Satyajit Ray's - films, books, screenplays, posters, music, fonts, photographs, Sandesh, the children's magazine he edited (first edition, 1913; Sandip Ray continues to edit Sandesh) - must be a whole parallel legacy, beyond what is normally written in a will - boring stuff about shares, fixed deposits and gold. A legacy like that can be both a pride and a burden, and can cast a shadow over you lifelong. His son Souradip Ray, Satyajit Ray's grandson, has already been assisting his father on several films. The Satyajit Ray Society/Society for the Preservation of Satyajit Ray Archives aims to preserve and digitise Ray's legacy, and make it accessible to the public, including via satyajitraysociety.org.

Soon, I'm ushered into Satyajit Ray's study beyond the drawing room. I'm also escorted by the Rays' adorable golden cocker spaniel, Luchi. "It could be Luchino Visconti,'' Ray jokes. The Study, that we have seen in a thousand photos, is a large, airy room, with row upon row of books on all sides. Books, possibly, have a different, umbilical significance for the Rays, as Satyajit Ray had said that he was "born in a printing press… which my grandfather had started." Elsewhere, Ray had also frankly admitted that he made a living off the royalties to his books, than the films he made - a tragic comment on the viability of the Indian indie film industry. Finally, you see The Chair that Ray would use. In fact, it's a single, burgundy-coloured sofa, where Ray sat, wrote scripts and smoked his pipe.

I've seen friends' Facebook photos sitting in The Chair, but I don't feel the slightest urge to do so - it feels sacred. There's also a meticulous shooting script for Sonar Kella in Rajasthan; a piano, dozens of Ray's awards worldwide, and labelled folders - Ashani Sanket Vol 1, Devi Vol 2, Ghare Baire Vol 1, The Alien (Abatar/Mangal Kabya (Avatar/Martian Tales). This was Ray's screenplay written in 1967, on the friendship between a small boy and a sweet-natured alien, that Ray had submitted to Hollywood's Columbia Pictures, 15 years before Steven Spielberg's E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, on a similar theme. I see a knot of old cassette players and laugh. These were such a crucial part of our growing up years. "They're some of the few devices that still work," Sandip Ray laughs.

One of the delightful discoveries is an old advertisement for Jabakusum taila (hair oil), from Ray's advertising days, with a charming drawing of Lord Shiva, with long, matted locks and tigerskin loincloth, rubbing Jabakusum in his hair, while holding up traffic. Cannot imagine such an ad circulating today.

I will soon take my leave. Looking back, it's a yellow building, with no name plate, and barely visible house number. But all the guys in the street know that if an outsider is looking a bit lost, they are probably looking for Mr Ray and they spring up to guide you, their chests swelling with pride. That is also one of Ray's many lovely legacies, tai na?

Meenakshi Shedde is India and South Asia Delegate to the Berlin International Film Festival, National Award-winning critic, curator to festivals worldwide and journalist.
Reach her at meenakshi.shedde@mid-day.com