Ray’s characterisations were unique and extraordinary….

If I am not wrong, Satyajit Ray has directed around 35 films and 2 documentaries. I have not had the good fortune to view all of them. However, the one thing which has amazed me about all of Ray’s films that I have watched, apart from his rare ability of uncluttered storytelling, is his unique characterisations.

The first character that comes to mind is that of Lalmohan Ganguly under the sobriquet of Jatayu, which was enacted by Santosh Dutta in the Feluda films. The character was neither total comedy, nor was it complete austerity. It did not bore the audience with foolish jokes, but enthralled them with witty humour. In 1996, Sandip Ray tried Rabi Ghosh, Anup Kumar and Bibhu Bhattacharya in the role of Jatayu, but all of them failed miserably. They failed to understand what the character was all about although they were outstanding actors in their own right. This exemplifies the genius of Ray in choosing actors for his characters.

The amount and clarity of thought that went into Ray’s characterisations can be gauged from the fact that he used Uttam Kumar, the best actor that Bengali cinema has ever produced, in just two of his films. Suchitra Sen never acted in any of his films. It is not that Sharmila Tagore, Aparna Sen and Madhabi Mukherjee were better actresses than Suchitra, but the fact was that Satyajit Ray did not ever think of reputations, but did think of the impact that the actor would have in playing a particular character on screen. That is why he has managed to create immortal characters like Maganlal Meghraj (Utpal Dutta), Gupinath and Baghanath (Tapen Chatterjee and Rabi Ghosh respectively), and Prodish Mitter (Soumitra Chatterjee).

Nobody can forget the impact that Dhritiman Chatterjee had in just five minutes of screen time in Agantuk, or the magic that Tulsi Chakrabarty and Utpal Dutta had created in Porosh Pathor and Agantuk respectively. There were many outstanding actors and actresses in those days, but I cannot think of anybody else who could have enacted those characters any better than the names I have mentioned.

I mean, people like Tapen Chatterjee, Dhritiman Chatterjee, Pradip Mukherjee (Jana Aranya), Mamata Shankar (Shakha Proshakha, Agantuk), Swatilekha Chatterjee (Ghare Baire, Kamu Mukherjee, Haradhon Banerjee and Shailen Mukehrjee were superstars in their own right, but they have been immortalised by Ray. Such was the greatness of the man that he could transform even lesser actors into outstanding performers, and one would never be able to reproduce them on screen again, apart from ray himself. That is why he was the greatest film maker that India has ever seen.