Table of Contents

Preface to the Second Edition and Acknowledgements vii List of Illustrations x Note on the Pronunciation and Spelling of Bengali xii Introduction: Getting to know Ray 1 1 A Bengali Banyan Tree: The Ray Family 12 2 Early Years 1921A-40 28 3 Santiniketan and Tagore 1940A-2 46 4 Commercial Artist and Critic 1943A-50 56 5 The Making of Pather Panchali (Song of the Little Road) 1950A-5 74 6 The Apu Trilogy 1955A-9: Pather Panchali, Aparajito 91 (The Unvanquished), The World of Apu (Apur Sansar) 7 Comedies: The Philosophers Stone (Parash Pathar) 1958, 107 The Holy Man (Mahapurush) 1964 8 The Music Room ( Jalsaghar) 1958 113 9 The Goddess (Devi) 1960 120 10 Three Daughters (Teen Kanya) 1961 128 11 Kanchenjungha 1962 136 12 The Expedition (Abhijan) 1962 144 13 The Big City (Mahanagar) 1963 149 14 The Lonely Wife (Charulata) 1964 156 15 The Coward (Kapurush) 1965 170 16 The Hero (Nayak) 1966 177 17 Musicals: The Adventures of Goopy and Bagha 182 (Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne) 1969, The Kingdom of Diamonds (Hirak Rajar Dese) 1980 vi The Inner Eye 18 Days and Nights in the Forest (Aranyer Din Ratri) 1969 192 19 The Calcutta Trilogy: The Adversary (Pratidwandi) 1970, 200 Company Limited (Seemabaddha) 1971, The Middle Man ( Jana Aranya) 1975 20 Distant Thunder (Asani Sanket) 1973 221 21 Detective Films: The Zoo (Chiriakhana) 1967, 231 The Golden Fortress (Sonar Kella) 1974, The Elephant God ( Joi Baba Felunath) 1978 22 The Chess Players (Shatranj ke Khilari) 1977 240 23 Two 1964, Pikoo 1980 252 24 Deliverance (Sadgati) 1981 257 25 The Home and the World (Ghare Baire) 1984 263 26 Documentaries: Sikkim 1971, Sukumar Ray 1987, 274 Rabindranath Tagore 1961, Bala 1976, The Inner Eye 1972 27 Unmade Films: Ravi Shankar, The Mahabharata, 283 A Passage to India, The Alien 28 Ray as Designer, Illustrator and Writer 296 29 Some Aspects of His Craft: Ray as Film-maker 306 30 The Inner Eye 319 31 Koh-i-noor: An Enemy of the People (Ganasatru) 1989, 339 Branches of the Tree (Sakha Prasakha) 1990, The Stranger (Agantuk) 1991, and the Legacy of Satyajit Ray Glossary 365 Filmography 370 Notes 381 Bibliography 401 Index 409

About the Author

Andrew Robinson is the author of more than a dozen books, including several acclaimed works on Rabindranath Tagore (written with Krishna Dutta), and the editor of three screenplays by Satyajit Ray. He is literary editor of The Times Higher Education Supplement.

Reviews

"...Ray has been blessed with an excellent biography by Andrew Robinson, first out in 1989 and now published in a second edition which covers the director's death in 1992. Ray described himself as a "combined product of East and West", and it is in coming to grips with these twin influences that Robinson succeeds. He teases out the strands of religious and artistic Bengali life that shaped Ray. Robinson knew Ray during the director's final decade, and quotes from numerous interviews while offering a studious analysis of each film." -Chris Wood, The Times "Andrew Robinson's biography of India's best-known filmmaker will remain the most detailed, and the seminal work on the life, times and oeuvre of Satyajit Ray". -Chitralekha Basu, The Times Literary Supplement