14 Short Stories That Inspired Satyajit Ray
Let us start with a little quiz. Which Bengali film marked the debut of Jaya Bhaduri? Hint: It was not Guddi, if that is what you were about to say? The answer: Satyajit Ray’s film Mahanagar (The Big City) that was made in 1963. The film was digitally restored and re-released on 18th April 2014. The film was based on a short story, Abataranika by Narendranath Mitra. The story marked the dilemmas of a traditionalist family where the woman has to work outside the house initially to supplement her husband’s meagre salary. Then when the husband loses his job, the lady has to do it out of compulsion.The lady’s in-laws are initially appalled and ashamed that this signals to their neighbors that their son does not earn enough to support the family. Her husband feels that this is proof that he is a modern man who “allows” his wife to work. Then with each step of his wife’s independence he shrinks just a bit. But when circumstances force the entire family to depend on his wife’s earnings, the family cannot reconcile itself to this new scenario. The film was a vivid portrayal of what was then a relatively new social phenomenon – the woman in the work place. Five decades later that film still resonates.By turning the short story into cinema, did Ray do justice to the film? Does some part of the credit go to the author of the short story? Ray had turned many a short story into a movie. Shatranj Ke Khiladi was one of them. Based on a short story that was only seven pages long Ray made the film that was at some level a political satire about how the noblemen of Lucknow played by Sanjeev Kumar and Saeed Jaffrey remained engrossed with their chess game even their own family remained victims of this neglect. In the finale, the British army advances to take over the throne from Wajid Ali Shah, while noblemen sit unaware, contemplating how to check mate each other.
I read the 14 Short Stories That Inspired Satyajit Ray by Bhaskar Chattopadhyay. The book picks fourteen stories that Ray had turned into films. It includes stories written by his grandfather Upendrakishore Ray Chowdhury, who wrote Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne or Premchand’s classic Shatranj Ke Khiladi or Rabindranath Tagore’s short story Postmaster that became the movie Teen Kanya. The book opens with Prabhat Kumar Mukhopadhyay’s powerful story Devi and ends with Ray’s own story Pikoo’r Diary. The story was written by Ray where the six year old protagonist Pikoo, is telling the story through his diary. It is a day in the life of a six-year-old child, Pikoo, who shares a close bond with his bedridden grandfather. The story is about his mother’s extra-marital affair. This is perhaps the only story where the translation faltered. The child’s language when translated seems extremely contrived. I would have been happier if the book was called “13 Short Stories That Inspired Satyajit Ray”.Apart from the little blemish, the book does pull out stories that tell you what made Ray pick them. All the stories are vivid and offer scope for a powerful visual interpretation. In a short story, the author can tell you how a character is dressed and that he is feeling hungry and annoyed. How would that be depicted on screen? What would be there in the background where this is being conveyed? How long should this be depicted visually on screen to make the story move forward? The book contains interviews with Sharmila Tagore and Dhritiman Chatterjee whose craft Ray had appreciated. The two interviews are insightful. Overall, the book is a recommended read to understand the director’s mind.------If you are Satyajit Ray fan, don’t miss: Remembering FeludaJoin me on Twitter @AbhijitBhaduri