The script and track of a master storyteller Premium

When it came to Satyajit Ray, it was from truthfulness that his determination to support causes dear to his heart arose

Satyajit Ray, director, script writer, documentary film-maker, author, illustrator and composer, to name a few, had a flair for sketching from his childhood. His drawing teacher in school used to say that he was Satyajit not merely by name but in his deeds as well (translation mine). Praising his integrity, a British manager in the advertising firm where Ray worked, made the comment that there was no chalaki (craftiness) in him.

Decades later, in an interview with the film critic, Iqbal Masud, on Shatranj Ke Khilari, Ray said, “One can well imagine a treatment of annexation with Wazid painted whiter and General Outram blacker, which would automatically enhance its popular appeal. My treatment avoids this falsification.” (August 1978). Do all these fall in place? Does not Ray’s oeuvre reflect ‘art wedded to truth’ that he valued so much?

The world of Ray

Extensive literature exists on the artistic merits of Ray’s cinema. New books are being written and fresh appraisals made of all his films. While Ray continued to renew himself and explore new frontiers, critics, especially those based in the West, failed to keep pace with him. Nevertheless, the subterranean truthfulness of his persona and outpourings has never been questioned.

In his book, My Adventures with Satyajit Ray: Making of Shatranj Ke Khilari (HarperCollins, 2017), producer Suresh Jindal faithfully chronicles his experience of how meticulous Ray had been in his research and treatment of the subject. Understandably, Ray took much longer time for his documentary on Tagore than for a feature. And for advancing the cause of good cinema, he did not mince words even at the cost of raising controversy and being misunderstood.

Ray’s critique of his contemporary Mrinal Sen’s film Akash Kusum, the much younger Mani Kaul’s Duvidha, Kumar Shahani’s Maya Darpan and Bapu’s Seeta Kalyanam emanated from his conviction. In all these cases, he explained clearly the reasons behind.

While Ray sounded critical of the initial works of a few directors, he was equally appreciative of others such as Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Shyam Benegal and M.S. Sathyu. Among his contemporaries, his writings on Jean-Luc Godard who introduced radical departures from certain established norms of cinema, or comments on Ritwik Ghatak who remained uninfluenced by Ray, are cases in point.