Stories of Satyajit Ray

Wide dimension of Stories of Satyajit Ray

Satyajit Ray image courtsey: hindu.com

According to intellectual critics of modern literature, Satyajit Ray had made memorable explorations into the twilight territories of the peculiar and the supernatural. Some of his extraordinary tales can send shivers up the spine, ensure everyone to keep the lights on when anyone goes to bed at night, and occasionally allow someone the luxury of nervous laughter.


In the story titled ‘Bhuto’, a ventriloquist’s dummy slowly but surely turns malign and more human than its master (1); in ‘The Pterodactyl’s Egg’(2) we meet a man who claims to have devised a way to travel, economy-class, into the fourth dimension; in ‘Anath Babu’s terror’ a ghost-hunter finds himself stalked by his terrifying quarry; and in ‘Shibu and the Monster’, a schoolboy has to figure out whether his mathematics teacher is really a demon or not (3).


In the Story “Ghurghutiar Ghatana” there was a person residing at Ghurghutia, a moffusil town in West Bengal who had a wide collection of Novels and Books which were expensive and not easily available in the market. He maintained a locker which had a German Lock which could be opened only by combination. These types of locks were used during the time of Second World War where only the owner can know the exact combination of numbers and open the lock. The Central Character of the story made his parrot memorise the combination of the lock through a small poetic verse which in Bengali is termed “ Heyali”. The Parrot used to say “Trinayan O Trinayan Ektu Jiro”, which in Bengali meant , the person with three eyes, please rest for sometime. His son kidnapped the father but could not understand the implication of the heyali. Feluda , the Private Investigator was invited from Kolkata to find out what the parrot meant through those lines. The deal was that if Feluda succeeds in doing so the expensive novels will be given to him as reward. Feluda, recollected the period when India was under the colonial rule and The British Government ruled the country from the Capital Calcutta. At that time the British Generals maintained a number of Hindustani sepoys who used to speak in Hindi. When the British people failed to order them to close the door, they used to say “there is a brown crow” meaning “ darwaza bandh karo”. Feluda picked up that message and solved the puzzle about the verse of the parrot. Feluda said “ Trinayan O Trinayan Ektu jiro” means “three nine zero three nine eight two zero”. That was exactly the number with which the lock could be opened .There are other aspects of the story which was solved by Prodosh Mitra, but the thrill of suspense and inquisitiveness of the readers was kept intact while presentation of the story.


For several decades now, Satyajit Ray’s tales about unusual happenings and bizarre characters rooted in familiar surroundings have both regaled and terrified his readers, young and old alike. They include ‘The Hungry Septopus’ (4), a carnivorous plant with a monstrous appetite, ‘Barin Bhowmick’, a kleptomaniac who is taken back several years by a chance encounter on a train, ‘Patol Babu’, an amateur actor for whom a walk-on part in a movie turns into the ultimate challenge, ‘Bipin Chowdhury’, who seems to be suffering from a most disagreeable form of amnesia, ‘Bonku Babu’, a mofussil schoolteacher who is visited one night by a friendly and somewhat awkward alien,‘Ashamanja Babu’s Dog’, who bursts out laughing one morning ‘Anath Babu’, a ghost hunter who finds himself being stalked by his terrifying quarry and many, many more unforgettable characters.


Following the huge success of his telefilms, Satyajit Ray Presents 1 and 2, Feluda-30 and Dr. Munshir Diary based on a bunch of Satyajit Ray’s widely-read short stories, Sandip Ray has made a tele-film Satyajiter Gappo-2 which was telecast on DD-1 and 7 (National channel) as a tribute to the maestro’s 80th birth anniversary. The interesting feature of that experiment lied in its freshness and novelty as it mostly concentrated on bizarre contours of everyday life, human values found in its natural splendour and conflicts and complex situations.

In the Film “ Joy-Baba Felunath”, 1978, Satyajit Ray created a case where an expensive Idol of Ganesha ( The Elephant god of the Hindus) is stolen from the House of Mr. Ghoshal in Benaras (5). The grandson of Mr. Ghoshal was told to tell everyone that the Idol is with the king of Africa. Actually there was a Durga Murti being made in the same house and Devi Durga’s Bahon which was a Lion , ( The King of Africa) , where the idol was kept hidden with gum. Bikash , an orphan in that house who was brought up in the Ghoshal Family stole it and gave it to Maganlal MeghRaj , ( a rich marwari businessman) having house in Gyanbapi in Benaras. He was supposed to smuggle the idol through a Sadhubaba ( Machlibaba) at the shores of the Ganges in Benaras. Feluda intervened and arrested Maganlal Meghraj and solved the mystery. The performance of Utpal Dutta, a brilliant figure of Bengali stage and Indian films was extra ordinary. The location of Benaras, the bhajans that were picturised in the film and the synchronization of the sequences was brilliant(6). It is a pity, that Ray did not have the time to make films on most of his literature in the form of short stories, Detective stories, Suspense Thrillers and Stories of Diverse categories. The literature of Ray should be revisited to understand the diversity of the range of topics, science base, technicality, educative subject matters, human values that Ray used to handle in the span of 35 years.

*****
***
**
*

(1)

Ventriloquism means the art of making one’s dummy talk when his master is the actual talker. There are certain letters the pronounciation of which does not require lip movement. For example if a Ventriquist says “ Mohunbagan” he will pronounce it ( nononbagan) because the letter n does not require lip movement.

(2)

Ptrodactyle is a prehistoric bord appearing duing the time when Human Beings did not appear in the earth. I moving specimen is evident in the Science City at Kolkata.

(3)

Satyajit Ray was born on 2 May 1921 in Calcutta. After graduating from Presidency College, Calcutta, he studied art at Rabindranath Tagore's University “Biswabharati” in Santiniketan. He won numerous awards for his films. He was honored with the Oscar for Lifetime Achievement by the Academy of Motion Picture Art and Sciences and bestowed with India's highest civilian award Bharat Ratna.

(4)

Septopus is an organism similar to Octopus. Octopus has eight tentacles, Septopus has seven. In the relevant story the author’s dog was eaten up by the Septopus and that had made the owner ( A Scientist fascinated with plants and orchids) kill the Septopus with his rifle because it had become carnivorous.

(5)

Joybaba Felunath released in 1977 won the Best Feature Film Award, Hongkong Film Festival, 1979.

(6)

My Father, the then Chdief Public Prosecutor, Bankshall Court ( Chief Metropolitan Magistrate’s Court, Kolkata) when made a submission in the Sandip Ray case on Manuscripts of Ray, mentioned that Ray’s property is National Property and should be only kept in Archive maintained in Nandan for future generations to develop their knowledge base on the fields Ray had worked on. The ACMM Mridul Ray said Sandip Ray should maintain the rich legacy of his father by creating the same standard of excellence in the creative arts which he is handling now. It is reported in The Statesman, The Telergraph and other notable newspapers in 1994.

Article By: Souvik Chatterji

Assistant Director

CUTS International,
Centre for Competition, Investment & Economic Regulation
D-217, Bhaskar Marg,
Bani Park, Jaipur 302 016, India
Ph: 91.141.2282821 (Board)
http://www.cuts-ccier.org

Detective Stories of Satyajit Ray

Detective Stories of Satyajit Ray

Satyajit Ray

Satyajit Ray was India's first internationally recognized film-maker and, 15 years after his death, still remains the most well-known Indian director on the world stage. Ray has written that he became captivated by the cinema as a young college student, and he was self-taught, his film education consisting largely of repeated viewings of film classics by De Sica, Fellini, John Ford, Orson Welles, and other eminent directors. With the release in 1955 of his first film Pather Panchali ("Song of the Road"), whose financing presented Ray with immense monetary problems, compelling him even to pawn his wife’s jewellery, he brought the neo-realist movement in film to India. Little could anyone have imagined that this first film would launch Ray on one of the most brilliant careers in the history of cinema, leading eventually not only to dozens of international awards, India’s highest honour, and a lifetime achievement Oscar from Hollywood, but the unusual accolade of being voted by members of the British Film Institute as one of the three greatest directors in world cinema.


Being a versatile genius of his times, much has been said about the skills used by Ray in transforming Celluloid from only a medium of entertainment to an arena of creative arts. Well known Directors of India namely Shyam Benegal, Adoor Gopalakrishnan and others have seen his first film Pather Panchali a number of times and learnt huge lessons relating to story telling in cinema. But much less has been said about Ray’s literary skills. Being a maestro of numerous number of Arts, including scripts, illustrations, music, his literature which predominantly was filmic got unnoticed. My entire childhood was flooded with crime thrillers of Ray being simplified for the children in series of stories of Feluda and Professor Shanku. [Feluda is the Private Investigator created by Satyajit Ray named “Pradosh Mitra” just like Fiction Character “Sherlock Holmes” created by Arthur Conan Doyle.] There were other writers of Bengal namely Premendra Mitra ( who have also made films on suspense thriller titled “Chupi Chupi Ase”, “Hanabari”), Hemendra Kumar Ray, Sunil Ganguly, Saradindu Bandopadhyay( Satyajit Ray’s film “ Chiriakhana” was based on his story where Uttamkumar played the role of Byomkesh Bakshi, a famous detective who solved a number of mysteries) [Chiriakhana was released in 1967 and won the National Film Award for Best Direction. Also Uttamkumar won the best Actor for playing the role of Satyanyeshi meaning founder of the truth] to name a few, who had attracted the attention of young readers and made a notable impact of stories relating to crime and punishment. But what was different in case of Ray’s literature was that he made the incidences cinematic. He always used to give description of the characters through ‘tapesh’ so that the chain of thoughts of the readers did coincide with the thoughts of the characters in his story.


When the same stories which were written, depicted by Ray were later made Films, they ended in excellence by their standards. The best example can be Sonar Kella ( The Golden Fortress). [Sonar Kella was released in 1974 , the film where Ray introduced the character “Jatayu” for the first time which was played by Santosh Dutta on who demise Ray stopped making any more films on stories of .Feluda ] Mukul, a young boy, was being haunted by memories of his previous life. He was taken to Dr. Hajra, a parapsychologist, for treatment. On discovering some drawings by Mukul that represented scenes from the past, Dr. Hajra believed that a Fortress in the drawings may be in Rajasthan. Dr. Hajra decided to take Mukul on a trip to Rajasthan in the hope that it might be a cure. A newspaper report caught the attention of two bandits. They kidnapped Mukul in hope of getting their hands on the treasure. The detective Feluda was engaged, along with his assistant Tapesh, to recover the child.

Sonar Kella was a bewitching comedy-thriller for children of all ages. An exciting and fun-filled journey that took audiences from Calcutta to Jaisalmer in Rajasthan including Felu and friends chasing a train on a camelbacks. It included beautiful color photography and use of color for dramatic effect.


The greatest skill of story-telling which was made evident by Ray was the use of coincidence. There is a scene where Feluda while travelling in a train from Kolkata to New Delhi was anticipating that the two Bandits to be in the same train with Dr. Hajra and Mukul if they have stayed in Delhi for one day and he anticipated any harsh step to be taken by the bandits. In the next scene Ray shows that Dr. Hajra is being pushed by Kamu Mukherjee who played the role of Mandar Bose from the cliff of Nahargarh Fort in Jaipur. [Nahargarh means the abode of Tigers. In Jaipur it is one of the most eminent tourist attractions. Satyajit Ray discovered that entire Jaipur can be seen from the summit of Nahargarh Fort. So he shot his sequence where Mandar Bose throws Dr. Hajra from the Cliff to kill him.] Ray realized that every reader while reading a story generally paints a picture of the person in their mind who is referred to in the story. So the writer or the novelist is supposed to give the details of the looks of the character to the readers .It became easy for him as he reached a level of excellence in illustration. The character “Jatayu” was intitially drawn in a different way. When Ray saw Santosh Dutta, the actor who played Jatayu in “Sonar Kella” and “Joy Baba Felunath”, he started drawing the character identically like Santosh Dutta. Seeing Satyajit Ray’s script full of illustrations is a treat for the eyes *. The film Sonar Kella was made for the children, but ended up in catching the attention of intellectual adult viewers, there were so many scientific aspects like telepathy, hypnotism employed in the film with justifications who reshuffled the knowledge base of viewers of different age.


Those readers who are addicted to read novels, short stories of Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle were also attracted towards literature composed by Ray. Besides the pictographic description of the places Ray used to describe ( Description of Lucknow in “ Badshahi Uncty”, description of Jaipur, Jodhpur, Bikaner, Jaisalmer in “Sonar Kella”, description of Benaras in “ Joy Baba Felunath”) was simply brilliant. Rays standard of perfection has given a new light on the historical, geographical, social and other aspects of every part of the world on where his stories were based. These days Sandip Ray makes films based on Satyajit Ray’s stories. [Sandip Ray had made films “Baksho Rahasya”, “ Bombaiyer bombete” and other films and TV serials on the stories of Satyajit Ray.] But the readers basically miss Ray’s literature which flooded the hearts of youth of the country with treasure of knowledge of different fields, subjects,dimentions. Research should be done on the literature of Satyajit Ray with same priority as the way his films are scanned. Detailed analysis of his literature can throw new light on the upcoming fresh talents of India who use their pen as a sword.


* [My Father, Sri Chitta Ranjan Chatterji, the then Chief Public Prosecutor of Bankshall Court, Kolkata was handling the brief of Sandip Ray ( son of Satyajit Ray) in a case where Uday Acharya, the brother of Nirmalya Acharya, denied to give Rays scripts which were with him, which were supposed to be kept in Nandan Archive under the supervision of Dr. Sur. The trunk containing the scripts of Ray were opened in Lalbazar, Kolkata Police Headquarters, where the scripts were unfolded. It included even the demi-newspaper called “ chandipurer Barta” used in the film Ganashatru by Ray . The case was reported in Anandabazar Patrika, Pratidin, The Statesman,etc in 1994.]

Article By Souvik Chatterji.

Master of Law from Warwick University,UK
LLM from Case Western Reserve University,USA

Assistant Director,
CUTS International Centre for Competition Investment and Economic Regulation, Jaipur, India
souvik_chatterji2000@yahoo.co.in

Related Reading

• Satyajit Ray - A Visualizer and His Films