Based on my Facebook post dated 2 November, 2022
Everybody kept telling me that an old FTII friend could easily fix an appointment but under the special circumstances involving both of us, he couldn’t be asked. All available telephone numbers had failed but I was determined. So, hosts SRFTI generously provided a car and an escort, and accompanied by another Gurgaon friend, we drove down to the famous address unannounced.
Clearing a gate much like in many a Ray film, we parked inside an open compound and found our way up a wide, wooden, carpeted staircase. The special state government installed lift was in place and blinking but we chose to foot it out to the second floor. That solid teakwood door facing us would easily take a tall man I noticed as we rang the bell and waited.
A help appeared and after a brief back and forth with the escort, took us in. The well known sunlit corridor lined with potted greenery was welcoming but we didn’t have very far to go. The first door to the right was where we were shown in. Sandip was in the bath, she told us, getting ready to go out and would take about half an hour to join. Would we like some tea or coffee? Thinking back I wish I had said yes, but hadn’t. I was partaking of the air of the house, so why not its water too?
Everything spoke of history in that large room and I was on my top absorption mode.
High ceiling, old hanging fans. A line up of awards, framed old photographs, mostly Ray’s. A Steve McQueen Bullitt poster prominently hung. Even a couple of rusting 35mm film cans atop cupboards. And books and cartons everywhere you saw; in cupboards, in wooden boxes, in stacks, spilling all over.
How many places are left today where smoking indoors is civil but this had been a confirmed smoker’s house and here was a lovely terracotta ash tray almost inviting. Does Sandip smoke?
I also saw a writing table against the wall. Over which hung an old photograph of the boy Satyajit.
I don’t think I had seen this one reproduced anywhere.
But of course this couldn’t be the famous Satyajit Ray study that I came looking for, for where are those large open windows of that corner room, for one? Where’s the piano? Volumes of Encyclopaedia Britannica, where in the Institute library I had traced Shatranj Ke Khiladi’s reference to damask rose for attar? And Eisenstein on the wall?
Sandip was most courteous when he came but in a hurry.
For somebody I had known from Marie Seton days, he appeared suddenly aged. I tried to mutter my circumstances but he is probably used to walk-ins such as ours. His living quarters double up as a veritable museum after all. I even had my Kabuliwala moment when I learnt that his little son who I had spoken to from Delhi just the other day is today 32 years old. How time flies is all I could say to tide over the embarrassment.
But finally, the study. Could we perhaps take a look?
No, the study is inside the other end of the house, he said, but it’s not… well… Next time you come, let me know, we’ll sit down, have a cup of tea…
In spite of his fumbles I could see there was no scope for further insistence. And for my part, I had no argument beyond my 90 kilos of presence within yards of the iconic spot.
Thirty years ago I could perhaps have heard a booming voice from inside that study, “Babu! Who is it? Let them in…”
Not today. Thirty years too late.
Sad.
Truly grateful for the warm reception, we bade good bye to the Satyajit Ray household.
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We took the lift returning. Surprisingly, a very tight thing. A capsule of sorts. In keeping with Ray’s own sense of humour, lines from a famous Pakistani satirist should be in order. If a boy and girl entered that lift, they could only come out married.
The Kolkata trip fulfilled my long cherished desire to visit Satyajit Ray’s house, so thank you Himanshu Khatua and SRFTI for that. But in very many situations throughout the visit—in fact far too many for comfort—a Mirza Ghalib couplet kept running in my head:
हर इक मकान को है मकीं से शरफ़ ‘असद’
मजनूँ जो मर गया है तो जंगल उदास है
Although every house assumes the dignity of its residents but Majnu’s case is special, for the whole ‘forest’ (that he used to roam forlorn and which was home to him) has turned gloomy at that legendary lover’s death.
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Am I ever returning to the House, I have since wondered.
No, not in a hurry. Firstly I don’t travel to Kolkata that frequent but even if I am in town, it may not be worth my while to make it the whole tedious way to do that. And who can say that a second visit would be as charged and exciting as this one had been?
But that needn’t mean the end of my interest in the sanctum sanctorum. I could always piece together Ray’s work place in the manner of a Bansi Chandragupta set, choosing live elements of the house from this visit, plus details from myriads of photographs in books and on my own hard disc. With this rich resource I could easily visualise, not only the exact size of the room and all it has to offer, but also smell its smells and hear its sounds.
Why, this way I could even get to have a cup of tea with the Master, who knows?
Clicks by Arun Chadha
Professor Satyajit Ray 