OUR DEAR MANIK DA...

By Sophiya Mathew

The man who was hailed as the harbinger of the new era and as the only person in India who understood the medium of cinema by Ritwik Ghatak ,the man whose character Herzong ,the protagonist in Saul Bellow's novel identifies with and the man who famously said, "The only solutions that are ever worth anything are the solutions that people find themselves."was the greatest Indian filmmaker of all time. He was also a screenwriter, music composer, graphic artist, lyricist and author. Apart from film making, he was also a fiction writer, publisher, illustrator, calligrapher, music composer, graphic designer and film critic. He authored several short stories and novels, meant primarily for young children and teenagers.This man who is popularly called as 'Manik da' as a sign of respect and described by Martin Scorsese as one of “the four greats” alongside Akira Kurosawa, Ingmar Bergman and Federico Fellini, is none other than the legendary SATYAJIT RAY.

Satyajit Ray changed cinema with poetic realism and humanist concerns, turning the medium into an art form.He was born on May 2, 1921, in an intellectual and affluent family in Calcutta, India. His grandfather, Upendrakishore Ray was a distinguished writer, painter, a violin player and a composer.In 1955 Ray made his directorial debut with Pather Panchali which was a great success. He won eleven international prizes, including Best Human Documentary at the 1956Cannes Film Festival and an honorary Academy Award in 1992.The success of Pather Panchali gave Ray total control over his subsequent films. What followed was a long career as a world-class filmmaker. Until 1981, he would make a feature length film every year.

Satyajit Ray maintained that the best technique of filmmaking was the one that was not noticeable.Tagore was probably the biggest artistic inspiration in Ray's life as some of his best work came from Tagore's novels. One such being the 1964 movie Charulata. The film based on a marital love triangle is widely recognized as Ray's best work. Backed by powerful performances, Charulata bagged the Golden Lotus Award for Best Film at the National Film Awards (India) in 1965.

Apart from directing films about inner struggles and conscious stricken personalities, Ray has also made comedies like Parash Pathar and musicals like Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne. The music composed by Ray, for the latter is probably the best-known contribution to the rich culture of Bengal. At the 16th National Awards, the movie won the Best Feature Film Award and Ray took home the award for Best Direction. In 1972, he made another documentary Inner Eye, which followed the story of a blind artist and a teacher from Visva-Bharati University, a university founded by Rabindranath Tagore at Santiniketan.

Ray`s work draws heavily from his birthplace. Movies like Mahanagar (1963), Aranyer Din Ratri (1970), and a trilogy of films made in the 1970s-Pratidwandi (1970), Seemabaddha (1971) and Jana Aranya (1975) all show stories through and through the streets of Calcutta and chronicle the day to day problems of people living there. In 1980, Ray directed Pikoo, a Bengali short film for French TV channel. Following Pikoo, he showcased corruption in the society through movies like Ganashatru (1989), and Agantuk (1991). These movies with male leads, represented a facet of Ray's own personality, aggressively protesting against the intellectual and moral decay of his beloved Bengal. Angtauk was Ray's last directed film.

He disliked the idea of a film that drew attention to its style rather than the contents.

Ray has received 32 National Film Awards.He and Charlie Chaplin are the only two film personalities who have received an honorary doctorate by the Oxford University.At the age of 71, he won Oscar for Lifetime Achievement , which he accepted from his hospital bed. He is one of the only three filmmakers to have won more than one Silver Bear for Best Director award at the Berlin International Film Festival and he was also honoured with the Bharat Ratna in 1992 by the Government of India.On April 23, 1992, the legendary filmmaker died due to old age complications.