Search Results

The final chapter of this volume shows how Suprabha Ray, left virtually penniless with a young son, faced her many challenges with a combination of ‘traditional’ and ‘modern’ values. After Kadambini Ganguli, she was the first of the Ray women to hold a full-time job, but, at the same time, she cooked, kept house for her brother—who had sheltered her after her widowhood—and personally taught her son, who started school only when he was eight. The chapter argues that Satyajit Ray, who never saw his grandfather and hardly remembered his father, modelled himself far more enduringly on his gifted and enterprising mother, who transmitted to him the Ray family tradition of making India modern by making modernity Indian—an aspiration that would mark all his own work in the cinema, literature, music, and graphic design.

This chapter shows how, after Upendrakishore’s death in 1915, his son Sukumar sought to remodel the traditions he had set. Sukumar’s literary work is explored in detail in this chapter, and it is also revealed how his best work, although categorized as ‘nonsense’ and often inspired by Western writers and illustrators, captured and satirized many of the incongruities of colonial rule as well as more philosophical uncertainties. The chapter also examines Sukumar’s energetic leadership of reform initiatives within the Brahmo Samaj, his transformation of Sandesh into a magazine for older children, his friendship with Rabindranath Tagore, his generally convivial (but possibly depression-prone) personality and, finally, his affliction with kala-azar and death at the age of thirty-six, which led to the collapse of the family business U. Ray & Sons, and the years of economic distress and social obscurity for his widow, Suprabha, and their young son, Satyajit.

This chapter explores Satyajit Ray's Sadgati (1981), a film adaptation of Premchand's short story ‘Sadgati’ (‘Deliverance’, 1931), in terms of Ray's handling of the dalit question. It analyses the mediation from ‘Sadgati’ to Sadgati and offers a reading of Mahasweta Devi's writings on the subject in conjunction with the progressive politics of Premchand. It discusses the shifts that seem to have taken place, particularly in relation to the representation of the caste question, which has been a matter of serious concern for writers/artists both within and outside the community, in the light of present debates on the subject. Both Ray and Premchand were sympathetic to the cause of the dalits, the most culturally marginalized in India, yet their portrayal differs in terms of tone and rhythm, which in a way transmutes the content. The chapter also considers Ray's non-recognition of the issue of untouchability in West Bengal.

Of Satyajit Ray's thirty feature films, twenty-three were based on fiction written by well-known writers. This chapter examines Ray's film adaptations of short stories by Rabindranath Tagore and Premchand to identify a pattern in his changing relationship with the original literary texts. It looks at Ray's evolution as a director and his responses to criticisms of his early films in the pages of well-known periodicals such as Desh and Parichay. As a filmmaker who engaged in film adaptation, Ray always took liberties with the original story, claiming that these changes were inevitable, that they reflected a change in perspective due to the time lag between the published story and its film version, or that they had to be done in order to tighten and improve the narrative. This chapter presents a close reading of two of Ray's films, Charulata (1964) and Shatranj Ke Khiladi (1977).

This chapter surveys the career and legacy of Indian cinema's greatest film-maker, Satyajit Ray. If Raj Kapoor can be credited with popularising Indian cinema around the globe, then Satyajit Ray can certainly lay claim to bringing a measure of artistic credibility and sincerity to Indian cinema. Choosing a favourite Ray film was a tricky proposition given the consistency he maintained as a film-maker over four decades. He may have built his reputation on the Apu trilogy, winning major awards at film festivals, but his lifelong fascination with Bengali novelist Rabindranath Tagore provided the source material for some of his finest and most complex works. Charulata (The Lonely Wife, 1964) forms the focus for the chapter, which covers the Bengal renaissance, Satyajit Ray's status as an auteur, gender representations in the films of Ray, camera and narrative style, the relationships between the three central characters, political undercurrents, and the film's portrayal of married life in the Bengali middle class.

Ghare Baire (1916), written by Rabindranath Tagore in the diary form of narrative, is a complex work of fiction. Embedded in it is a historical moment of the swadeshi in Bengal around the years 1903 to 1908, a period when the very foundations of imperial administration in India was rocked by Indian nationalism. This chapter explores how Tagore and Satyajit Ray grappled with Ghare Baire, placing it in the politico-historical context that gave birth to nationalist struggles in India and how Ray's film adaptation of the novelistic text resulted in shifting emphases. Joy Gould Boyum has argued that, in a film adaptation, one inevitably deals with two interpretations, one by the filmmaker and another by the author. The chapter concludes that every adaptation is, ultimately, an interpretation.

Translation studies have addressed the inter-lingual and intra-lingual aspects of translation, but few have explored its inter-semiotic aspects. Certain practical problems have been raised regarding the plausibility of the very category of inter-semiotic translations as exchanges between one system of signs and another in the Jakobsonian framework. One problem relates to translation equivalence, in which there is a lack of exact correspondence between single units in the source system and those of the target one. This chapter examines some aspects of the process of inter-semiotic translation with particular reference to Satyajit Ray's interpretation of the short stories of Rabindranath Tagore along with a discussion of his distinctive style in Teen Kanya (1961) and Charulata (1964). It looks at two aspects of film language—the verbal and the iconic and how they influence the process of film adaptation.

In his short story ‘Shatranj Ke Khiladi’ (1924), Premchand uses the game of chess as a subtle politico-colonial metaphor. Known in its heyday as ‘Paris of the East’ and ‘Babylon of India’, Wajid Ali Shah's Lucknow symbolizes ‘decadent refinement’. In his film adaptation of the novel, Satyajit Ray depicts his luxury-intoxicated, chess-sedated noblemen friends as politically conscious, extremely aware of the insidious exploitative nature of the East India Company. Ray also portrays a self-indulgent Lucknow, but his tone is never judgemental. Both Premchand and Ray focus on elements of the spectacular that constitute the pulsating matrix of Wajid Ali Shah's Oudh. This chapter, with reference to ‘Shatranj Ke Khiladi’, is an informed rendering of the politico-colonial metaphor of chess used as a game of power between the colonizer and colonized whereby it compares the experiences of colonization in select countries of Africa and Asia.

Satyajit Ray's Ghare Baire (1984) is a political film that encompasses within it the seeds of 1947 partition and Ray's understanding of Rabindranath Tagore's futuristic vision of horror to perfection. Yet the film has been subject to much criticism, both at home and abroad, for allegedly deviating from the literary text. This chapter offers a close reading of the visual and sonic motifs used in Ghare Baire, with special reference to the colour schemes employed by Ray to amplify the ambience of the narrative. It examines Ray's use of significations and motifs for projecting his narrative vision and analyses his aesthetic sensibility. It discusses structure, dramatic tension, irony, and synaesthesia in Ghare Baire. It also comments on Ray's use of the ‘mirror’ as a recurring motif throughout the film to suggest self-reflection and understanding of the individuals concerned as the ‘Subject’ and the others as the ‘Other’.

Satyajit Ray's cinema has consistently explored different aspects of womanhood to generate a constellation of ideas, images, debates, reflections, histories, and provocations. This is evident in films such as Postmaster, Charulata, and Ghare Baire. Situating the eye as the site of perception and reflection, Ray's films stress the important role of cinema in articulating and structuring identity, particularly that of a woman in India. The representation of women in several of Ray's films derives from Rabindranath Tagore's fiction. This chapter explores Ray's portrayal of women in Tagore's narratives, which allows him to re-assess modernity and interpret the past, explore the complex interaction between reality and representation, culture and identity, and tackle the relationship between literature and film. When the camera and the cinematic screen frame mediate our vision, what are recorded are moments of perception that suggest insights into cultural history.

This chapter draws interesting parallels between Western phenomenological discourse and the philosophy of Rabindranath Tagore, focusing on the poetics of space. It examines Satyajit Ray's cinematic transcreations of Tagore, primarily with reference to the bourgeois interiors in Charulata, Ghare Baire, and ‘Monihara’ in Teen Kanya. It argues that Ray never sought a simple translation of Tagore's metaphors into visual forms, and instead substituted them with a range of cinematic frames within which space, interiority, affect, and self-image received distinct treatments. It also alludes to postmodern experiences of viewing within the home where the gaze of the camera is replaced by the proliferation of looks subject to interruption. A film like Charulata, made to be viewed in the cinema theatre continues to engage the viewer by creating a space of intimate cinema by projecting an aura within which the audience shares in that interior space and interior time.

An apparent shadow falls between Rabindranath Tagore's ‘Noshto Neerh’ (1901) and Satyajit Ray's Charulata (1964). ‘Noshto Neerh’ focuses more on the domestic sphere as well as the making and subsequent breaking of a home, an act often interpreted to be a woman's prerogative. Charulata focuses on the lonely lady confined to the world within but one who is constantly seeking intellectual stimulation and wants to establish contact with the world without. This chapter examines the enigma of ‘departure’ in ‘Noshto Neerh’ and Charulata. It compares the last shot of the film to Michelangelo's work, The Creation of Adam. Unlike Michelangelo's creation which exudes vitality, however, the gesture by the protagonist Charu is more of an attempt to maintain the status quo and restore the prevalent patriarchal order which does not allow any transgression.

Satyajit Ray filmed Premchand's ‘Shatranj Ke Khiladi’ in 1977, the time of the Emergency in India, and Rabindranath Tagore's Ghare Baire in 1984, a period of nationwide insurgency. The two films problematize the issue of power and its effects on both the wielders and the victims. This chapter presents a critical reading of the frames of history used to cinematically portray the impact of a declining feudal order pitted against the triumphant march of colonial agency ushering in a Janus-faced modernity in Ghare Baire and ‘Shatranj Ke Khiladi’ on terms that were a complete departure from our traditional and cultural moorings. Both films deal with colonialism and envelop within it feudalism as well as gender inequality. Two concerns which also surface in Ghare Baire are ethicality and hospitality.

Satyajit Ray's Charulata (1964) is known for its historical significance and its exquisite cinematic crafting. The film stands on its own merits, with Ray able to transform his abiding interest in the culture and ethos of nineteenth-century Bengal, as well as his veneration for Rabindranath Tagore's fiction that captures it so well, into an exemplary work. Charulata (1964), an adaptation of Tagore's short story/novella, ‘Noshto Neerh’ (‘The Broken Nest’, 1901), engenders a whole new politics of ideology and craft. Ray meticulously exploits his field to make discreet and intellectual use of two additional media that are available to him and denied to the printed text: the audio and the visual. The film is premised on the notion of the gaze, or, of looking.

Games represent the binary opposition to work and are commonly held to be pleasurable because they interrupt the monotony of quotidian activities. Games play a key role in both Premchand's fiction ‘Shatranj Ke Khiladi’ (1924) and Satyajit Ray's film Shatranj Ke Khiladi (1977) and are related with chess players. The film enlarges the metaphor of the game to include the larger historical game that was being played by the East India Company officials within the province of Avadh. This chapter examines the various games played in Ray's Shatranj Ke Khiladi and the consequence of these games in the historical context in which the story is situated, that is, 1856 Avadh, and in the context of the film. It offers a reading of the multi-layered motif of games in ‘Shatranj Ke Khiladi’ and criticizes Ray's politics of representing history in lines that were hardly free from colonial hangovers.

This chapter discusses how narrative positions are negotiated in film adaptation, focusing on the representation of the female in Rabindranath Tagore's novel ‘The Broken Nest’ (‘Noshto Neerh’, 1901) and Satyajit Ray's film Charulata (1964). The very poignantly ambiguous note on which Charulata ends subverts the very notions that it had worked upon in the early parts of the film by assuming the ‘woman's gaze’. While Ray tries to substitute the traditional male gaze for a female one, this chapter argues that this is not really the case in its entirety. The representation of the female in both ‘The Broken Nest’ and Charulata are obviously entrenched in their own historicity and the historicity of their authors. Both necessarily deal with the ideas that have arisen from the debate on women, their education, and their place in the family, society, and in the world during the period.

Satyajit Ray made a number of films based on Bengali literary texts. What happens when a literary text transforms itself into a cinematic text? In order to measure a worthy film adaptation, one may talk about its fidelity to the source text. But how much does the film stay with or stray from the novel? This chapter discusses Ray's Charulata (‘The Lonely Wife’, 1964) and Purnendu Patrea's Streer Potro (‘Letter from A Wife’, 1972), both of which were adapted from Rabindranath Tagore's short stories, while making disobedient detours through other films. In reflecting upon the ‘disobedient detours’ made through adaptation, the chapter highlights certain textual moments that allow for a consideration of ‘medial breaks’. This raises the question of what films can do that novels cannot. The chapter concludes by drawing attention to a ‘textually transmitted disease’ of disobedient women—the trope of clothing, jewellery, dress, and ornamentation.

This chapter focuses on the life and work of actor–director Pramathesh Chandra Barua (1903–51), the person who most dramatically symbolized the capacity of the new forms of popular culture to express some of the changing concerns of Indian society. Barua represented, in the popular imagination, the final triumph of the worldview of Saratchandra Chattopadhyay (1876–1938) and the special meaning the novelist gave to the journey from the village to the city and, sometimes, to the tragic, ill-fated, and desperate attempts to return to the village from the city. The chapter also considers the contrasting views of the two greatest names in Indian art cinema—Satyajit Ray and Ritwik Ghatak—regarding the films of Pramathesh.