SATYAJIT RAY: MOODS AND MOMENTS
This May 2, 2021, was a special day for fans of the auteur Satyajit Ray (2 May 1921 – 23 April 1992) as it marked his 100th Birth Anniversary.
The office of Development of Museums and Cultural Spaces, Ministry of Culture, Government of India kickstarted the birth centenary celebrations of legendary filmmaker Satyajit Ray by releasing a tribute film A Ray of Genius. This was followed by actress Sharmila Tagore’s special feature in Sandip Roy’s show, remembering the director who launched her in the film Aparajito. In fact, many Ray fans are still raising a salute to his genius for a year-long celebration of his outstanding contribution to cinema. From artists, photographers, art historians to curators, Ray touched the life of many.
Capturing Ray in his different moods and moments was a privilege that lensman Nemai Ghosh (8 May 1934 – 25 March 2020) won, over the years, by just being quietly present around Ray’s sets. Not demanding anything, no money, no fame, only the chance to shoot the filmmaker at work, Ghosh spent many years quietly shadowing the auteur.
Ray made many important films, from Pather Panchali (Song of the Little Road), 1955-1956, Aparajito (The Unvanquished), 1956, and Jalsaghar(The Music Room) 1958 naming the few. Ghosh managed to tail along on many of their sets. However, finally Ray began to ask for Ghosh and soon he officially joined the production sets for the film Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne (1969) and then Aranyer Din Ratri (Days and Nights in the Forest), 1969. Ghosh stayed on till Ray’s last film Agantuk in (1991) after which the great director passed away.
Art writer, curator and collector, Ina Puri, who has written about and curated Ghosh’s work may times tells us that in his youth, Ghosh was not a trained photographer; he was a dedicated stage production person who knew the effects of light on a protagonist and he assisted his Friend Rabi Ghosh who was a stage actor. Like most of Bengal, Nemai worshipped and respected Ray and it wasn’t long before he gained ‘shy’ access to a Ray set and later post 1969 he became part of his unit.
“Ever since I have known Nemai Ghosh, I am aware that he slept with a small bag packed by his bedside, with a change of clothes and essentials, so that he could just pick it up and leave whenever Ray called upon him,” says Ina Puri. “Such was his dedication,” she adds, remembering the late photographer fondly. Puri has recently worked on a large book with Paresh Maiety featuring Ghosh’s stories about working with Ray and the film fraternity, titled A Portrait of an Artist in the World.
Puri is the grandniece of filmmaker Ritwik Ghatak, and she has always been surrounded by culture, cinema and art. She has been “collecting little nuggets” of stories on those working behind the scenes like Ghosh. “Despite his towering frame and laid-back, jolly temper, Ghosh was an unassuming man. He was also Ray’s most committed worker. More than being a brilliant lensman he was committed,” she observes.
Before passing away at the age of eighty-four, Satyajit Ray gave Ghosh his now legendary pet name of “Boswell with a camera, instead of a pen.” The lensman, by his own admission, could never quite get over the shock of losing his mentor, whose life and work assumed a greater degree of permanence through his stills since there are over a lakh of them.
A very famed still by Nemai Ghosh owned by Ashish Anand, CEO and MD of Delhi Art Gallery, is one of ‘Ray, sketching and painting his story-board.’ Ray’s entire family was artistic with both his father and grandfather being acclaimed illustrators. In his childhood memoir Jakhan Choto Chilam, Ray had recounted how he was a particular favourite of his school art teacher. In the black-and-white photograph by Ghosh taken at Ray’s residence, the auteur is seen seated and illustrating the opening credit sequence for Sonar Kella (The Golden Fortress). The film was adapted from a detective novella by the same name that Ray had written three years prior and featured the famous detective Feluda, a Bengali equivalent to Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes. The setting for the photograph was Ray’s home-study, which Ghosh had captured from innumerable angels, showcasing the different aspects of Ray- as a writer, composer and, as seen in the photo, an illustrator.
Photographer Sanjay Das reveals that his connection with Bengali cinema goes back to Ray’s films Shonar Kela, Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne and others made for children by Ray. “We cherished his films and, in those days, one could not view movies at home. One waited for the Durga Puja celebration when a huge projector was placed in Pandals, a big screen set up and then Ray’s films were screened for all the children who would gather there. My childhood is flavoured by Ray’s cinema, those beautiful shots and the music scores by Ravi Shankar,” says Das who is planning a solo show this September 2021, curated by Ina Puri titled Aparajito the Unvanquished. The exhibition is not a direct tribute to Ray but it acknowledges that filmmaker on a subconscious level since it was Ray that pulled him towards the old charm of interior Bengali, to hold back something for the next generation to show them Bengal beyond the city of Kolkata.
Text by Georgina Maddox
Image courtesy: Sanjay Das and personal collection of Ina Puri
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