Tag Archives: Anil Chatterjee

Devi (1960)

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When I posted on Twitter about the person who’d advised me to not ‘waste my time’ watching ‘silly Indian films’, a Twitter follower pointed out that Satyajit Ray was also Indian. And I had to concur: Ray, in fact, was the first person who came to my mind as a refutation of that ‘silly Indian films’ generalization. His films are works of art. Occasionally ‘silly’ (Goopy Gyne Baagha Byne fits there), but that silliness is on genius level. It takes brains and creativity to be silly in the way Ray was with that film.

But Devi, ‘The Goddess‘, is nothing like that. There is no silliness here, unless you interpret toxic superstition as silliness.

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Mahanagar (1963)

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Today is the birth centenary of Satyajit Ray: he was born on May 2, 1921, in Calcutta.

I am not going to expend words and energy in writing even a short biography of Ray: is there any need, after all? Because Ray is too well-known, too well-respected, for him to need any introduction. If there’s one Indian film-maker who’s acclaimed even abroad, it’s Ray. And when you think of how he didn’t merely direct great films, but wrote them, composed music for them, designed costumes for them—and wrote novels and short stories, designed typefaces, created art: you realize just how multi-faceted a genius was Satyajit Ray.

Satyajit Ray
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Meghe Dhaka Tara (1960)

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There was a point, when I was watching Meghe Dhaka Tara, that I was reminded of another much-acclaimed Indian classic, Pyaasa. A man, an artiste (a singer, not a poet, as in Pyaasa) wanders along on a grassy patch of land, singing. Far beyond is the railway track; around him are shady trees, a path, solitude. Here is a man practising his art, being one with nature, without a care for the world around him.

Shankar does his riyaaz

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