Satyajit
Ray was born May 02, 1921 in Calcutta. His father died when he was young.
He grew up under the protective wings of a young, widowed mother. She was
with him till the end of her days, worrying about his health, looking after
his little needs. When he left to shoot the film in Benares, she saw him
off with a million instructions for his welfare. She was at the airport
to receive him, when Ray returned from Italy with the prize. Ray depicts
this relationship in his second film, Aparajito, probably the only film
in which he puts a little bit of himself. It charts the young protagonist's
anguished journey towards freedom from his mother's fierce protection and
love.
After
graduating from Presidency College, Cal, in 1940, he studied art at Rabindranath
Tagore's University at Shantiniketan, West Bengal. By 1943, Ray was in
Calcutta and working as a Visualizer in a British advertising agency. He
was also designing covers and illustrating books brought out by the Signet
Press, including an edition of Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhya's novel, Pather
Panchali, which he was later to turn into a film. It was around this time
he developed an interest in films, with a passion for writing scenarios
of prospective films.
He
established the Calcutta Film Society in 1947. During a six month trip
to Europe in 1950, he became a member of the London Film Club and managed
to see 99 films
in four and a half months, including Vittorio De Sica's Bicycle Thief.
He returned with the conviction that it was possible to make realistic
cinema with an almost entirely amateur cast. Upon his return he married
his cousin, Bijoya and they have a son, Sandeep who has also made a few
films, most based upon Ray's stories and screenplays.
In
1955, he made Pather Panchali (the Song of
the Road), his first film, with financial assistance from the West Bengal
Government. The film won many awards abroad including one at Cannes. Thus
began his film making career which ended with Agantuk (the Stranger) in
1991.
