More anecdotes on Ray

I feel encouraged by reader’s comments to recollect and write more anecdotes on Satyajit Ray.

I still remember Satyajit Ray’s Oscar acceptance speech of 1992 Academy Awards. My generation will; forever!!!  I was studying in Class XI . Satyajit Ray was very ill then. He was admitted to Belle Vue Clinic in Calcutta. The Academy members came to Calcutta to give away the Oscar.  Dilip Basu, a professor of UCLA was instrumental in getting them to Calcutta. Inside the hospital room Ray received the Oscar from his wife Bijoya Ray’s hands (I refer to ‘Amader Kotha’- an autobiography published in Bangla by Ananda Publishers, for this information). After receiving the Oscar in the reclining hospital bed Ray gave a memorable speech recorded by the Academy cameraman. That speech of 4.5 minutes was shown in the Oscars ceremony in March 1992 after a brief montage (of Ray classics) and introduction by none other than Audrey Hepburn. There was a standing ovation after Ray’s recorded speech. The speech not only moved the audience present there, but also Billy Wilder, a very famous Hollywood filmmaker of Double Indemnity and Sunset boulevard fame. Ray in his speech said that he learnt a lot from Hollywood and directors like Billy Wlider, John Ford, Hitchcock influenced him a lot. He said that being deeply touched by Double Indemnity and Sunset Boulevard he wrote to Billy Wilder in appreciation in the late 1940’s. But Billy Wilder never replied. Ray wrote to Deanna Durbin too at the same time. She never replied also. Well! The speech ended with a thunderous applause and standing ovation in Dorothy Chandler auditorium. Surely the Americans liked the fondness and appreciations of all things Hollywood by a person from distant shores. But the story does not end here. Few days after this Oscar acceptance speech, Ray household got an Air mail from USA. The sender was Billy Wilder. He apologized profusely for not replying to Ray much, much earlier and wished him good luck and speedy recovery. This news published in Calcutta dailies like Ananda Bazaar Patrika and The Telegraph gave us a real thrill.

Another one I remember about Ray. Once while showing Mahanagar in some European film festival a film critic noticed that the movie ends with the camera panning to the open sky of Calcutta and focus on a streetlight having two bulbs- one was alight, another not. In this very moment the couples (Anil Chatterji as husband and Madhavi Mukherji, the wife) who have lost jobs are hopeful that they will get job soon and this city will never forego them. The critic showered praises on Ray for showing the half-lit streetlight to display the contradicting emotions of hope and hopelessness, anxiety and apprehension of the jobless couple. Ray simply said that he never wanted to mean anything by that last shot. The Calcutta streetlights, many of the time, due to lackadaisical nature of municipal maintenance used to have one bulb functional and another fused to give that half-lit appearance. It was mere coincidence that he got one when he panned the camera. Needless to say audience was amused.

Ray is still watched and admired in America. It has to be remembered that it was due to Merchant-Ivory Productions’ active effort that classics like Pather Panchali were digitally re-mastered and restored. Very recently I found (from an article in Outlook) that David Packard of the Hewlett-Packard (HP) fame is an ardent admirer of the master. He arranged a special show of Ray movies in Pasadena , California as an “antidote of pessimism” shown in  ‘Slumdog Millionaire’. Long live Ray.

Note: This blog written by me first appeared in Passionforcinema.com in August,2009