The celebrated Satyajit Ray who won the Oscar’s lifetime achievement award on his death bed, always believed that writing and making films for children was an extremely serious business.
Child’s act
So even when the great filmmakers of his time were involved in making films for adults and complex relationships, Ray was scripting the world’s finest films involving children, their sensibilities and emotions. Understanding a child’s mind and the ability to look at their world especially through their eyes was in his template, and in his DNA — his grandfather, Upendrakishore Roychoudhury, and father, Sukumar Roy, were both great craftsmen in this regard. Ray directed 36 films — including feature films, documentaries and shorts — and authored several short stories and novels, primarily for young children and teenagers. Feluda, the detective and Professor Shonku, the scientist in his science fiction stories, Tarini Khuro, the storyteller and Lalmohan Ganguly, aka Jatayu, the novelist were lifetime characters created by him. He also revived children’s magazine Sandesh, which his grandfather launched in 1913. Ray edited the same till he passed away in 1992.
Films and children
Sample his crèche — and like what TS Eliot had said — the stream of consciousness will become vivid before your eyes… the eternal ‘screen’ shot of Apu and Durga running through the kaash fields in Pather Panchali to see the steam engine belching out smoke, little Kajol asking his father about his status in Apur Sansar; Ratan refusing the one-rupee tip, Mrinmoyee whose favourite squirrel’s demise takes a backseat as she realises that she is a grown woman… were indeed masterpieces depicting children and will always vividly be stamped in the mind. This is indeed the true picture of Ray’s cradle and how he nurtured “his children” (literally) through his thoughts and sensitivities. They grew bigger than the fabric of the film and created a niche in our hearts forever.
Brush with Hollywood
Ray’s first film Pather Panchali in 1955 won 11 international awards, including the inaugural Best Human Document award at the 1956 Cannes Film Festival. This, along with Aparajito (1956) and Apur Sansar (The World of Apu) (1959), form The Apu Trilogy. There’s an interesting tale about his foray into Hollywood. In 1967, Ray wrote a script for a film to be called The Alien, based on his short story Bankubabur Bandhu (Banku Babu’s Friend), which he wrote in 1962 for his children’s magazine Sandesh. It was planned to be an US-India co-production with Columbia Pictures, with Marlon Brando and Peter Sellers in the lead.
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