Bani to visit ‘Mahanagar’ for Ray Memorial Lecture

KOLKATA: A vacation to Puri with father Tarun Bhaduri in the 1960s had landed Jaya Bachchan a role in Satyajit Ray’s ‘Mahanagar’. Sharmila Tagore and Robi Ghosh, who were then shooting there for Tapan Sinha’s ‘Nirjan Saikate’, had spotted her.
Convinced she would be the right fit for playing the role of Anil Chatterjee’s sister, Bani, in ‘Mahanagar’, they told Ray about it.
The rest, as they say, is history. On the 60th year of the release of ‘Mahanagar’, Bachchan will be in town to talk about Ray at Nandan on May 1.

Riddhi Goswami, a member of Society for the Preservation of Satyajit Ray Archives, which is organizing the event, said this programme was last hosted in 2019. “The Ray Society organizes an annual Satyajit Ray Memorial Lecture to commemorate the master’s birth anniversary. This time, it will be a conversation among Jaya Bachchan, Sandip Ray and Aditi Ray, followed by the screening of ‘Mahanagar’,” Goswami said. “For the first time, Kolkata will be able to watch a screening of the restored version of ‘Mahanagar’,” said Kamal Bansal, whose father had produced the classic.
Mimi Bhattacharya, associate professor at Dum Dum Motijheel College and daughter of Madhabi Mukherjee who played the role of ‘Mahanagar’ protagonist Aarti, had studied the film for her doctoral thesis, titled ‘Changing Images of Women in Bengali Cinema’. According to her, Bani’s character significantly helps flesh out various layers in Arati’s character. “In middle-class society, the space of women was well-defined. Home was her place. Even if she was educated, it was almost always limited to subjects, like domestic sciences. But Ray’s screenplay broke that stereotype. Remember the scene where Bani suggests a great career option for her sister-in-law would be that of a film star? While society was pigeon-holing women, here was a girl who was completely uninhibited,” Bhattacharya said.
In Ajay Mishra’s edited ‘Satyajiter Chhobite Prothom Obhinoy’, Bachchan had mentioned her first shot in her career was at Indrapuri studio, with Anil Chatterjee. Back then, she used to wear a pair of specs and Ray had asked her to wear them on camera. Not once did she feel uncomfortable facing the camera, with Ray first reading out her scene and then, giletting her enact it her way.
Director Sagnik Chatterjee said, “Not much is available about Jaya Bachchan’s ‘Mahanagar’ experience in the public domain. I am keen on hearing what she says.”
Ray had given Bachchan a recommendation letter that was attached to her CV when she had applied to FTII. There were talks about her doing another Ray film but her FTTI schedule came in the way. “They met in Pune when Ray came for a screening of ‘Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne’. Even during that meeting, Ray had emphasized how good it was that she had enrolled there and would get an opportunity to learn all aspects of film-making,” Goswami added.