Posts

The Making of Pather Panchali

Image
  I heard the name of Satyajit Ray for the first time in 1945.  At that time my eldest sister (Smt. Maya Mukhopadhyay) brought Abol Tabol along with several other volumes. The books were printed by Signet Press. Each of the books bore the marks of a clean and refined taste. The covers were gorgeous, intended to win the hearts of the young. The outside cover and the inside illustrations of the books were splendid indeed. Such a union between the stories and illustrations transports the mind into a world of dreams.  It was the time of war. Everywhere there was fear of bombing. People were fleeing from the towns and the cities to the villages. All the members of our family came to the village of Amta in the district of Howrah. My mother was very ill and bedridden while my father had been in his place of work at Barrackpore. The duty of taking care of us fell on my maternal grandfather. He was our guardian then. Although Amta was not far from Calcutta, communications were quite troublesome
Post a Comment
Read more

THE LOST NOTE

Image
1974, north Calcutta. The city was trying to shake off the aftermath of the terrible days of the Naxalite uprising. You could hear boys playing football in the fields again. On the raised concrete porches attached to the houses on the side of the footpaths, the evening chat sessions have begun again. Kali-babu’s tea stall at the central crossing of the locality is buzzing. In that neighbourhood of the dimly-lit, narrowest alleys and houses with old, moth-eaten walls, of the low doors and the high stairs, Tanmay-da was an ideal young man for all of us. He came from a joint family in which his father and uncles lived under the same roof. Their three-storied, dilapidated rented house was always abuzz. On the ground floor, you could hear the third scion playing his Sitar, on the second story the fourth demanded that another cup of tea be served immediately while on the first story the eldest brother would take a few puffs at his country-made cigarette with a gentle yet mischievous smile on
Post a Comment
Read more