“I studied at Presidency from 1936 to 1940. I didn’t start in arts. I began with science.” The words are Satyajit Ray’s.
In a 1993 interview for ‘Nostalgia’, a commemorative illustrated history of Presidency College (now Presidency University), Ray opened a window into a largely undocumented chapter of his life.
Cover page of the souvenir magazine 'Nostalgia' (Sourced)
On his 104th birthday, The Telegraph Online looks back at the interview the auteur gave to the souvenir magazine published to mark the 175th anniversary of the institution.
He remembered his college days not for nostalgia. But for clarity.
In the exchange, Ray is not the Oscar-winning master filmmaker. He is a candid, articulate ex-student reflecting on four turbulent college years.
He was just 15 when he enrolled. Still unsure of what to do with his life. “I wasn’t sure what to pursue, but I had decided that I would shift to arts.”
His father’s close friend, statistician P.C. Mahalanobis nudged him toward economics. “He told me that he would get me a job at Sankhya, his journal. That job promise, more than anything else, made me choose economics.”
Ray’s own assessment of the choice?: Chakrir lobh ey orthoniti niyechhilam; Amar third year ebong fourth year praye bola jete parey matthey mara gechhe” (I never truly liked economics. My third and fourth years were wasted, more or less).
“My interests lay elsewhere — film, music, Western classical, those had already begun to fascinate me”, Ray added.
By his own admission, he didn’t study very seriously. “College work — I mostly dodged. I should have taken English. I realised that only after attending the classes. But by then, it was too late.”
Still, he enjoyed the teaching at least, when the classroom wasn’t in chaos.
A page from 'Nostalgia'- a commemorative souvenir magazine that marked the 175th anniversary of Presidency University Dipankar Chowdhury
“I was one of the moderately good students, not academically, but attentive,” he said. And yet, some of his strongest memories came not from books, but from the atmosphere in the classroom. “Some teachers had to face impossible levels of rowdiness. I remember Ajit Chakraborty’s English class very clearly. He eventually committed suicide. My belief is that one of the reasons he took that step was the terrible behaviour of students. They were impossibly unruly. He had no chance to teach.”
But Ray was also quick to point out during the interview that he had wonderful teachers, especially in English. “We had excellent professors — Prafulla Ghosh, Jibanananda Sen, Tarapada Mukherjee, Subodh Sengupta, Somnath Maitra... I enjoyed their classes a lot. They seemed to like me too, I wasn’t a bad student overall.”
As a young man, Ray was already being pulled toward a different world.
“College didn’t affect me much. It didn’t give me much either,” he said. “I had already decided I’d never pursue an academic career. During my BA years, I was deeply drawn to music and cinema. Not filmmaking — not yet. Watching, learning, discussing.”
Ray had passed his matriculation early, at the age of 14-and-a-half. The rules had just changed to allow boys younger than 15 to sit for the exams. By the time he graduated with a B.A. in Economics, he had not yet turned 18.
Despite poor academic performance, he was admitted to Presidency partly because of a family connection. “I didn’t score too well in my matric. But the Principal then… B.M. Sen knew my family. That helped.”
Discipline at Presidency was known to be strict.
But Ray didn’t recall any major suspensions. “Presidency usually took in good students – those with strong matric results. That’s how the college maintained its reputation.”
Politics?
“There wasn’t much of a political movement then not in our college,” he said. “This was still the pre-Independence era, but student activism hadn’t peaked yet. Maybe things were building up, but I wasn’t involved.”
The Presidency College magazine(1981-82) cover designed by Satyajit Ray (Sourced)
His strongest memories?
“Prafulla Ghosh’s classes. He brought Shakespeare alive. Also, our cricket and football teams were pretty good. I wasn’t into cricket or football much. But I played a lot of table tennis.”
Did people discourage him from thinking about film?
“Even at home, my mother disapproved. There was no certainty in this line. No fixed income. A job meant you’d get paid every month. People were scared of cinema as a profession.”
But Pather Panchali changed everything. He reveals in the interview: “Pather Panchali na holey ki hoto, ami janina” (I don’t know what would happen if Pather Panchali didn’t happen)
“That first film gave me name, prestige and recognition. After that, the path got easier. Of course, there’s always some struggle in filmmaking, but I’ve managed to keep going.”
He did have early signs of literary flair. “I used to write well in English. Professors like Somnath Maitra, Tarapada Mukherjee, Subodh Sengupta — they all encouraged me. Subodh Sengupta even wrote in his memoir: ‘Satyajit was a very good writer. Later, I heard he was making films. I slapped my forehead — how could I know he’d become so famous through film?’”
Did college help him in any way?
“It gave me a habit of studying. That habit helped later. But that’s about it. What I became… writer, filmmaker, music composer, artist, Presidency had very little to do with it.”
Even his honours result was a grind. “I got Second Class Honours. But it was cramming – not joyful study. I read just enough to pass. I wrote good English, and spoke well. My Bengali writing also improved later.”
But the regret stayed.
“My choice of subject was wrong. If I had taken English instead of Economics, things might’ve been very different. I lost two crucial years.”
And yet, when the Presidency College community looked back on 175 years of legacy, they had to turn to their most celebrated alumnus — Satyajit Ray.