Satyajit Ray । সত্যজিৎ রায়

A creative genius, Satyajit Ray’s inventive sensibility was a combination of nature and nurture. His inspirations ranged from Rabindranath Tagore to his teachers Nandalal Bose and Benode Behari Mukherjee in Santiniketan, from the films of Renoir and De Sica (Bicycle Thieves), Chaplin and Ford (Fort Apache) to the photography of Cartier Bresson and the music of Beethoven.

A great Bengali who had broken the international celluloid ceiling and done so with nothing but a mind full of images, a satchel full of sketches, a handful of friends, and a pocket short of cash.

Ray was a director who had never directed a scene but in his 40-year career, he showcased human dignity amid tragedy in The Apu Trilogy to the resilience of the human spirit in Mahanagar; the strong anti-war message through a children’s fable in Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne to the triumph of punishment over crime in his popular detective films Sonar Kella and Joi Baba Felunath.