There are few things that haven’t been written about filmmaker Satyajit Ray and his immense body of work. Ray’s genius, his famously contemplative frames, his ideology and his view of the world have all been subject to study. The third volume of The Satyajit Ray Centenary Show, however, draws you to the man that Ray was. It offers fresh glimpses into Ray’s inner world. Celebrating his birth centenary, the show is an opportunity to marvel at Ray anew.
The month-long show, curated by the Kolkata Centre for Creativity, and presented in association with the Kerala Lalithakala Akademi, has rare collections of letters exchanged between Ray and the producer of his iconic 1977 Hindi film Shatranj ke Khilari, Suresh Jindal. It is evident that Ray took writing letters seriously; they seem earnest and without the airs of an accomplished calligraphist (he introduced a unique calligraphy to the Bengali text). While his letters to Jindal are in English, those to his long-time penfriend, Debjani Ray are in Bengali.
Debjani, a fan of Ray’s work, wrote to him on a whim, after watching his 1974-film Sonar Kella.
