Page 9 - Seniors Today - April Issue

professional letters – he never kept any
Sharmila Tagore and Soumitra Chatterjee in Devi (1960),
which Tagore says is her favourite performance. Courtesy
Satyajit Ray Productions
Pratidwandi and I was thrilled to see my
name in the credits alongside the name of
Nemai Ghosh.”
“For Bala, the documentary Baba made
on Balasaraswati, the iconic and legendary
dancer, I got the opportunity to assist
him and by then, I had begun to be very
interested in editing and in background
music specially after Baba began to write
and compose the music for his films
himself. Watching a scene I had actually
seen being shot now being clipped during
editing was magical for me. I also handled
the still camera for the film. Years later,
I was DOP for his last three feature films
- Ganashatru (An Enemy of the People,
1989), Shakha Proshakha (The Branches of
the Tree, 1990) and Agantuk (The Stranger,
1991).
The Father – According to the Son
Talking about the subtle influence his
father had on him, Sandip says, “As
a little boy, I would copy his way of
pictorial script writing. His homework
was solid and his time-management was
incredible. He divided the day into different
compartments. He would wake up at
around 7.30 in the morning – personal and
SENIORS TODAY | ISSUE #22 | APRIL 2021
letter unanswered and wrote them out in
his own hand. Then he would sit down to
work on illustrations which he loved to do
in natural light, followed by lunch and then
writing commissioned features and articles
while listening to Western classical music
which was his favourite.”
Within this routine, one phase was
entirely devoted to family-time and one to
adda-time. Lunch and dinner had to be with
the entire family and he always insisted
on spending family time a lot except, of
course, when he was on location. We would
chat about everything you could think of
and rarely discuss films. He was very fond
of food, but simple food cooked at home,
nothing elaborate or decorative or complex.
He was not particularly fond of fish unless
it was Ilish cooked in mustard paste in
mustard oil with green chillies. But when
he fell ill, he had to give up all his favourite
items of food – fish, red meat, luchi and aloo
dum. It made him sad but he bore with it.
He was also very fond of his adda sessions
on weekends of course, when he was not
shooting. He was a great raconteur and had
a fascinating sense of humour and satire.
He loved these chats and everyone who
was anyone would drop in such as Adoor
Gopalakrishnan, Shyam Benegal who
even made a documentary on Baba and his
friends from other fields such as the famous
poet Subhash Mukhopadhyay. This would
happen between nine in the morning and
go on till 12-30 to 1.00 and would dissolve
before lunch.
Remembering his father as filmmaker,
Sandip says, “As a filmmaker, there was a
certain ruthlessness about him. Sometimes,
he would spend days working hard to put
a scene together. But on the editing table,
if he found that that scene was not taking
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