Silence... Music... Memories...Sad

silence.. silence.. silence.. all the silence which I could not get during the weekdays seems to be flocking into my home on Saturdays.. !!!

The chirping of the Gubbachchis (sparrow) right at my room window, a small nest which is getting formed, sometimes soft music flowing into the heart and sometimes from my heart, through my voice which I, most of the times, not able to control. Above all these things, if it rains, wov... altogether a different world.

It was in this kind of environment, I was listening to Kishori Amonkar singing Ahir Bhairav and Todi... what a singer she is !!! It's alsmost months since I heard Kishori Amonkar and particularly these two ragas, which makes my heart heavy. No it does not make me light. It brings back a whole load of memories, failures, depressions which I have passed through, It brings back all those phases I sailed through during my college days, post-college days. For me, these ragas are directly connected to all these things.

I really wonder how come we are so connected to music. Some songs, straight away dump some incident which happened sometime in your life. I still remember. I was in my 6th standard. We were all in the class. We got to know that one our school mates who was staying very close to my house, died because of some illness. We all went to see his body. When I was seeing his body, somewhere far away, I could here "Ninna Savi nenape manadalli aaraadhane....." a song by S Janaki from the movie Anuraaga Bandhana. From that time onwards, till date, whenever I listen to this song, immediately the picture of that dead body, that home, his mother crying, the shoutings from his family members out of horrible thing which had happened to them, the smell of agarbattis, sugandharaaja flowers, all these comes in front of my eyes of the mind.. Not sure how much our minds can store in its memory. How many terrabytes !!!

My Memories - Satyajit Ray

This was the logo which Satyajit Ray designed for his film Devi, through which Sahrmila Tagore came into the film industry

Photo Courtesy : Nimoy Ghosh

Even though 02 May is his birthday, I am punching in the lines now which I hold so close to my heart.

It was 1991 and I was working as Staff Reporter for a weekly tabloid called City Tab. I was covering Cinema, Theatre and Music. It was the time for an International Film Festival. Almost all the biggies of the cinema movemement were there at the festival. Somehow, I caught hold of Adoor Gopalakrishnan through my contacts. It was so strange, that I requested Adoor to help me in connecting with Satyajit Ray who was part of the festival. Adoor gave one curly look at me and smilingly said "why? don't you want to interview me?". Was it intentional ? Not sure. However, I got an opportunity to shake hands with Satyajit Ray during a retrospective of his films. I still remember very clearly that his movie Ghare Bhaire was being screened.

Me, a 5 feet 1 inch character was standing in front of Satyajit Ray, who was 6 feet 4 inch tall, clad in white kurta. I, who was in disbelief that I met him, did not know what to talk to him and Adoor said "this man wants to meet you". Satyajit Ray looked at me through his angled spectacles and said "what are you?". That question brought me back into this world. I told him " I am staff reporter from the local weekly tabloid and would like to talk to you about your films". The moment I told him local news paper, his expression changed. "Haan, teek hai. Dekhenge". I was sure by now that, I lost the opportunity. Next day, I again went behind him and said "sir, time milega?" He just looked at me and said chalo, kahin baitenge". We sat in one of the corner and he told me. "Before you ask me questions, let me check your knowledge on my films. What do you know about my films? What do you think I am trying to convey to people?". This came in as a shocking thing for me. I blabbered whatever I knew about his films beginning from Pather Panchali (which has 5 characters of Apu, Harihar, Sarbajaya, Durga , and the old Indira who comes into their life to make their life even tougher) till Gana Shatru. He said, hmmmm... ask me now what you want. It was like god standing in front of a devotee asking him what boons he want. This time I was prepared and the interview went for 40 minutes where must have talked at least 25 minutes. He mentioned about Vittorio De Sica's Bicycle Thieves, the film which inspired him to get into the world of cinema to make a difference.

In the end, he shook my hand and said you have a long way to go. You have raw talent. I think you should polish it quite a lot...

This was my memory of Satyajit Ray. I can never forget his baritone voice and I felt so small infront of him. We fellows, who have so little talent, behave as if the world is because of us. and here is a person who is so down to earth and so simple, that he spoke to me, who knew so little, but was thinking myself so big. Interaction changed my perspective on how human being should live.

These moments, I will always cherish and today, after 53 years, when Pather Panchali created a history and a trend, he will always remain a person who from being advertising and graphic designing, came into the film industry and totally changed the cinematic world forever across the globe. He was a director, set designer, composer, editor, and what not? A great soul whom we miss in today's big bad world of insensitive cinema.