Page 7 - Seniors Today - April Issue
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after a famous celebrity some time ago and making was happening at all. On the one
changing it again would be an insult to the hand, it gave me something to do and on the
memory of OC Ganguly. But the change did other, it was something crying to be done,”
take place. All of us, including the present says Sandip with a smile.
Rays, still refer to it as Lee Road or 1/1 It has rained in this hot summer afternoon
Bishop Lefroy. “I was barely seven years and the drizzle has left puddles in the
old then and as far as my memory goes, this compound so the air is a bit cool which
has been my home all my life,” says Sandip. spills into the room, filling the ambience
with warmth. We sit down in the spacious
The Son - Now drawing room filled with books all around
It may appear tough being the only child us. Soon, tea arrives in a beautiful, bone
of one of the world’s best filmmakers in china tea service, a rare scene in our fast-
the history of cinema. But Sandip Ray changing world of come, shoot, and please
seems unfazed as the son of Satyajit Ray. leave.
He comes across as a very grounded and The Rays are completely rooted to Bengali
unassuming human being, warm to a fault culture. The door is always attended to
and a very good conversationalist. I have by a family member who welcomes you
been to this home several times, twice when to a spacious drawing room spilling over
Ray was alive and a few times after he had with books, books and photographs. The
passed away. The house has remained more corridor is lined on one side with a plethora
or less the same with Ray’s study one feels a of plotted plants and the other side has
bit diffident to step into. framed black-and-white photographs
“I enjoyed the lockdown during Covid of Rabindranath Tagore, Ray’s father
because for the first time in my life, I Sukumar Roy and his mother Suprabha
decided to clean up and reorganise my Ray. The other photographs are clear but
father’s study which I had not dared Suprabha Devi’s portrait is fading every
to touch before as it is flooded with passing day.
everything he worked on and with – books,
manuscripts, drawings, sketches, musical Father as “Father”
notations, magazines, photographs, “I was a two-year-old toddler when Baba
records, books, you name it and it is there. I went to shoot Pather Panchali on location
could not have done it if the lockdown and in a village called Boral. My memory is
the pandemic had not happened as no film- blurred and faint. I remember my mother
or my grandmother carrying me in their
arms in the shooting site. The only memory
I still carry with me is that from the main
entrance of Apu’s “home”, I could glimpse
a railway line. It was fascinating,” he
recounts.
“To me, father was just “father” as I was
just too small to understand what he was
and what he did. It was only when his
As a filmmaker, there was a certain ruthlessness about
Satyajit Ray, recalls his son pictures began to appear in magazines
SENIORS TODAY | ISSUE #22 | APRIL 2021 7
