No child's play

Even when deeply moralistic, Ray understood children better than all other Indian filmmakers

Partha Chatterjee Delhi

Children's cinema never really took off in India except for a few films by Satyajit Ray, who was anyway better known as a filmmaker for adults. Having said that, one must also say that Ray's commitment to children was as deeply felt as that of his late father Sukumar Ray (1889-1923), a superbly gifted writer of nonsense verse and stories for children and an unusual graphic artist, and grandfather Upendra Kishore Roy Choudhury (1863-1915), also an illustrator and writer of note, who founded Sandesh, the first magazine in Bengali for children, revived by his grandson in 1961 after a hiatus of thirty eight years.

The first film that Satyajit Ray made for children was Goupi Gayen Bagha Bayen in 1968. It was based on a story by his grandfather Upendra Kishore Roy Choudhury about the adventures of a tuneless singer, Goupi and a rhythmless drummer, Bagha, who find each other in the wilderness after being banished from their respective villages for their constant cacophony. They find happiness and music after many adventures and succeed in bringing about peace between two warring kingdoms. It is a pleasant film with serious anti-war undertones and some catchy music. The long-playing record of the music was a great hit. Ray's lightness of touch ensures that the film retains it sparkle. It does so even after all these years.

Memorable was the dance of the King Ghost filmed in negative and with enormous daring. This eight-and-a-half minute set-piece was made with the minimum of means as Ray, per force, had to work on a tight budget. Flickering images of a ghost and his cohorts dancing to rollicking music, and with a distorted voice brimming over with wit and mischief telling us about the boons that are going to be bestowed on Goupi and Bagha to change their fortunes for ever, create an aura of unalloyed fun and magic. There are hardly any such moments in cinema, Indian or international, where adults and children meet happily on common ground.

There has been nothing in Indian cinema before Goupi Gayen Bagha Bayen that could be called children's entertainment. What  was produced by the Children's Film Society of India (CFS), an organisation set up with all good intentions by India's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, could at best be called dreary. Even a lyrical filmmaker like Kidar Sharma was thumped when he had to make films for the tots. His strict Arya Samaji upbringing precluded treating children as friends and the need to teach them vital lessons in morality and ethics through caring and sharing and, above all, through play. Instead of being creative and imaginative, which he was in several of his films for adults, Sharma was pretty dull addressing children. Jaldeep, made in the mid 1950s for the CFS is an example.

So is Hum Panchhi Ek Daal Ke.  Unlike other well-intentioned moralists, Satyajit Ray understood children and never patronised them.

Kunal Chakravarti, who played Mukul, the little boy who remembers his previous birth in Rajasthan in Sonar Kella (1974), found a friend and an ally in the towering 6 feet 4 inches Satyajit Ray, who patiently answers all his questions including one about why stars shine. The film was a thriller based on an already published story by Ray featuring the detective, Pradosh Mitter, also known as Feluda and his devoted young assistant Topshey. The duo was modelled on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson.

Sonar Kella was for young teenagers although like any good film it could be enjoyed by adults as well. It is a chase film with three parallel narratives. The first is of Mukul, parapsychologist Dr Hazra and two comic villains who push Dr Hazra over a hillside and race towards the golden fortress, which Mukul remembers from his dreams; the second is of Feluda, Topshey and their new found friend Lal Mohan Babu, the popular Bengali adventure novelist, chasing Mukul in order to rescue him from the kidnappers before it is too late; and the third of a hobbling Dr Hazra, who has had a miraculous escape, trying to locate Mukul and restore him to his parents whose trust he has won.

There is every ingredient of a morality tale here, but Ray's touch is light and witty and his lively sense of humour present even in serious scenes lending them an unusual flavour. The fantasy of the fortress of pure gold that would bring the two stupid villains wealth beyond measure turns out to be made of yellow sandstone and the film comes down to earth in the last sequence but not before the short, pudgy, bearded crook, who is scared by a peacock call, is literally carried away underarm by a policeman as if he was a child being punished for bad behaviour. Of course all the main characters in the film traverse across difficult terrains and situations that test their physical and mental agility as well as their character through out this really outstanding fable.

The next film Joi Baba Felunath (1978) also features the trio of Feluda, Topshey and Lal Mohan Babu. It is set in Benares, the holy city. Detective Pradosh Mitter alias Feluda is engaged by an aristocrat to recover a priceless jewel-studded Ganesh statue. The adventure takes Feluda and his two associates through many incidents, including a hair-raising one when, as the virtual prisoners of Maghan Lal Meghraj, a shady art collector and businessman, they are subjected to some dangerous horse-play. Lal Mohan Babu is made to stand against a board so that Abdul, a doddering old knife throwing virtuoso can demonstrate his skills on him at Maghan Lal Meghraj's orders. Abdul proves to be every bit the master of his art but Lal Mohan Babu takes fright and faints. The film also has an uncharacteristic murder scene when an old clay modeller who does the frieze of Ma Durga for the Durga Puja celebrations is done away with at night. It is a deeply disturbing moment in an otherwise entertaining film for the young and can be seen perhaps as an unintentional reflection of the times the film was made in.

Ray's last film for children was Heerak Rajar Deshe (1982), an accomplished but didactic film against the tyranny of authoritarianism. Well paced, and cleverly scored musically, it captured the imagination of older children because of its simple yet rich ideas which include the nature of morality and the necessity for it. But sheer filmic skill overcomes possible problems like underlining moral issues quite easily.

Satyajit Ray, ever the conscientious artiste, was conscious of the dwindling moral and ethical values amongst the middle class and was aghast at the often amoral behavior of adults and its detrimental effect on growing children. He continued to write even in his last years, which were fraught with illness and anguish: even then his stories enjoyed considerable popularity amongst readers of all ages.

He was sadly unable to make another film for children, to make them laugh, wonder and think. In his last film for adults, Agantuk (1991), the traveller, anthropologist and connoisseur of life, Man Mohan Mitra urges his pre-teen grand nephew not to lose his sense of wonderment, not to become a frog-in-the-well.

Since he operated under considerable financial constraints like his equally illustrious contemporary from France, Jean Luc Godard, although his films invariably turned out a modest profit for his producers, Ray was forced to stretch his ingenuity to the utmost and his films for children were not exceptions in this regard. Marie Seton, the English film critic and a great champion of Ray's cinema while praising Goupi Gayen Bagha Bayen lavishly, found the special effects to be tacky. Except for the last shot in somewhat garish colour, the film was well shot in black and white and the special effects, although rudimentary by today's standards, were executed with great verve. Here imagination triumphed over paucity of technical resources. No amount of money could have created a more magical or poetic film.

Ray had set his heart on doing The Alien based on his own idea. It called for special effects of a very high order. Stanley Kubrick had in 1968 set the benchmark with 2001: A Space Odyssey, whose visuals overwhelm us even now in 2005. But Ray was searching for a more human and possibly humane approach to his subject. He would most likely have found greater inspiration in the singular, unique inventions of the American underground filmmaker and artiste Jordan Belson who, with advanced amateur equipment, created visual delights that still move a refined sensibility. Ray had recruited Mahendra Kumar, a protégé of his friend Ritwik Ghatak, to do the special effects. Kumar remembers Ray being impressed by his suggestion that weightlessness of people walking in space could be visually evoked by making them walk clumsily on large translucent sheets, a bit loosely stretched, and photographed a little above floor-level in slow motion. All the visual effects in those days were mechanically done. The electronic revolution was yet to arrive.

Satyajit Ray was the only Indian filmmaker and writer in our times to genuinely care about children. And he entertained with knowledge and love. What a pity! How pleased they might have been had he found the money to make The Allien, a profoundly human and subtly imaginative script about a creature from outer space who comes to earth and is befriended by an orphan boy who innocently helps him understand the complexities of the human world.