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Literary Review
Raymarkable
HERE is Satyajit Ray, disclosing how he managed to get results from child actors: "I needed an expression of shock from the [6-year-old] boy ... I made him stand on a stool, and, at the crucial moment, had my art director strike the stool with a hammer. We captured the reactive shudder." Will you ever look at "Pather Panchali" in the same way again?
This and other nuggets abound in Raytrospective 2001, a slim collection of articles on Ray, almost single-handedly produced by its editor, Indrani Majumdar. When her financiers ditched her at the finishing line, she put in her savings and produced the 102-page brochure, illustrated with drawings by Ray. We learn how Ray played Sibelius backward in the music for his "Jalsaghar"; how he classified people as "odd" and "even" on the basis of the Beethoven symphonies they preferred; how his book Our Films, Their Films (Orient Longman, 1976) got written. There is also a critical essay on Ray's "blatant sexism and partriarchalism". Contributors include Gowri Ramnarayan, Sujit Mukherjee, Kishore Chatterjee, Ashley Tellis, Partho Datta and Adam Low. For copies, contact indrani_majumdar@yahoo.co.in
ANURADHA ROY
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