More than a muse

Manik-da: Memories of Satyajit Ray,
By Nemai Ghosh, HarperCollins, Rs 199

Manik-Da: Memories of Satyajit Ray was first published in Bengali in 2000; a French edition followed a year later and now, 11 years afterwards, we have the English version — a slim, well produced book. But should one pack 50-odd photographs, a foreword by Sharmila Tagore and a longish text into a book? Yes, according to Maitrali Mukhopadhyay, the Bengali publisher, to keep the price within the reach of the “ordinary Bengali reader”, and HarperCollins apparently agreed, even for its all-India readership. In this manner, I think the publishers have done a disservice to both Satyajit Ray and Nemai Ghosh, considering how much people are otherwise prepared to pay for a lot of tripe that gets picked up off the bookshelves.

To Nemai Ghosh, Satyajit Ray is a lot more than a ‘muse’, ‘a guiding spirit’ or just ‘a source of inspiration’; he is besotted with his Manikda and thinks nothing of subjugating an acclaimed career in the theatre and his undoubted genius with the camera to the Ray persona. The filmmaker’s reach and reputation were awesome, and the deification process began within the first few weeks of Ghosh’s coming in contact with Manikda during the shooting of Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne in 1968. It kept growing for 25 years thereafter till Ray’s death in 1992.

However, when used as a verb, ‘muse’ expands to mean to ponder, cogitate, reflect, speculate, contemplate, introspect, question and so on. The list is long. Ghosh isn’t interested in doing any of these things; consequently, three things happen. First, the photo opportunities which his narrative leads up to remain only observations and the reader feels cheated. Conversely, and except in less than a handful of cases, he doesn’t explain the taking of the photographs that he does use; they appear as if on the walls of his studio. And, we find very little of Ray at work, which is a great pity because from what we have seen elsewhere, the filmmaker was supremely animated when he was amongst his milieu, with sets, props, actors, crew, his music, the weather and the gawking public. For many, the almost studied, studio-type photographs would be something to fondly gaze at, without thinking too much about them, such was the man’s visual presence and his photographer’s undoubted skills on black-and-white film; for those like me, looking for strokes of genius, frozen in time and delivered to you in person, the book will not suffice.

Without meaning to, the narrative sometimes lets us in on Nemai Ghosh, the man. How, only after Ashani Sanket was canned, upon seeing that everyone drew pay, he mustered up just enough courage to approach Ray, “Please give me at least a rupee. I just want to be a professional,” he had begged. This, after all the hundreds of great stills he had produced since GGBB. He doesn’t say how much he got out of Ray.

At other places, he hints at dark memories: “It is better not to allude to those in the context of such a great personality. Towards the final stages, things had come to such a pass that I often felt like quitting.” Professional jealousies were eroding his relationship with Ray, but Nemaibabu is a bhadralok, and won’t sling mud; fair enough, but why talk about it, then? A good editor would have taken care of this.

As we read, the narrative hints at difficult choices; forgoing money and duty to family, exchanging a lucrative career in drama for the uncertainties of filmmaking, surrendering a lot of priceless negatives, his oeuvre, to others for a pittance or not even that. But these issues are never discussed; it is as if being with Ray was enough.

In the final analysis, is Manik-Da successful? If asked, Nemai Ghosh would not explain.