Calcutta, Sept. 19: Long before the mountains shook in the monotone drawl of death, a deep-throated human voice had lent its resonance to take viewers around the winding pathways.
Satyajit Ray’s baritone in Sikkim (1971).
The 60-minute documentary opens in silence with a shot of children blowing on traditional bugles before Ray’s voice takes over.
From twisting tracks to the marketplace, from boys and girls plying their special craft to life in the royal palace across a colourful gate, the master filmmaker paints a picture living and vibrant.
But the film was hardly ever exhibited in public.
Commissioned and produced by the then Chogyal (king) Palden Thondup Namgyal and his American wife to “attract more foreign tourists to Sikkim”, it was banned when Sikkim acceded to India in 1975 for its depiction of monarchy.
The aftertaste of the ban aside — “and that’s now democratic India”, Ray had told his biographer, Andrew Robinson — the filming gave Team Ray some memories to treasure.
“Baba (Satyajit Ray) went to Sikkim many times for the documentary because he wanted to capture the seasonal changes of the place. I had accompanied him on one of the schedules,” said Sandip Ray.
“We were working on Pratidwandi. We had a small shoot in Darjeeling and after wrapping that up, we went to Gangtok…. Since the documentary was being made by the Chogyal, we had the best of facilities. We stayed in beautiful guesthouses. There was no electricity then, and I remember we would have dinner together in candlelight.”
Cinematographer Soumendu Roy was Ray’s constant companion during the making of Sikkim. “It was 1971. We were a group of around 12 and we went around shooting all over Sikkim. It was done in two phases with a 15-day stint each — in September and then in December. There were no proper roads and food was not easily available,” recalled Roy, who returned this April on the invitation of the Sikkim government for a screening of Sikkim.
“It was my first trip back to Sikkim after 40 years. It looked completely different. There were high-rises, malls and good roads — none of which I could relate to looking back at the old Sikkim I knew.”
Sikkim was scheduled for screening at the Calcutta Film Festival in 2009, thanks to the efforts of preservationist Joseph Lindner who was to digitally restore the film’s master print. But that never happened.
It was to be the star attraction at last year’s Calcutta Film Festival too, but after just one show, the Art and Culture Trust of Sikkim (ACT) moved court and stayed the screening over a copyright claim.
The documentary finally had its world premiere in April this year in Gangtok, organised by the ACT.
It was the call of the Kanchenjunga that took Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury to Sikkim for his debut film Anuranan.
“I had done a documentary on the eastern region of India back in 1993-94. At that time Sikkim was hardly being explored as a shooting location. We shot in Pelling and stayed in a government hotel next to the PWD bungalow. When I woke up one morning and looked out of the window, I saw a 180-degree view of the Kanchenjunga, crystal clear. So in 2005, I went back to Sikkim to shoot Anuranan with that view of the Kanchenjunga in mind,” Roy Chowdhury recalled.
Perhaps by coincidence, the film was beamed by a movie channel last night, a few hours after the quake hit Sikkim.
“Since Anuranan, I have been going back to Sikkim every year because I find it very tranquil. The infrastructure is a lot better now,” said the filmmaker.
A Tollywood young Turk with a soft spot for Sikkim is Srijit “Autograph” Mukherji. “I had been to Sikkim as a student and loved the pristine quality of the place. For 22shey Srabon — a crime thriller releasing on September 30 — we chose to shoot in Sikkim because we couldn’t go too far away from Bengal.”
Raima Sen, the common link between the Anuranan and 22shey Srabon shoots in Sikkim, said: “I keep telling people in Bombay about Sikkim. They go abroad for shoots but they should try and discover unexplored places like this.”
After Sunday, such shoot-at-site plans will have to wait.
