Bijoya, the architect of Ray films

KOLKATA: Bijoya Ray’s contribution to Satyajit Ray’s work was not just limited to selling off her jewellery to finance ‘Pather Panchali’. Many of Ray’s cult works have the stamp of Bijoya’s intellectual inspiration, those close to the Ray family say. For example, her admiration for Uttam Kumar could have bolstered Ray’s resolve to cast him in ‘Nayak’.
Ramesh Sengupta, fondly known as Punu-da in the industry, is one of the oldest surviving assistants of Ray. Ask him if he had heard stories of how Bijoya might have influenced her husband to cast Uttam Kumar and he says, “I don’t rule that out. Not only she, even Manik-da’s mother admired Uttam Kumar’s movies.”
Sandip Ray echoed, “Baba had written the screenplay of ‘Nayak’ with Uttam Kumar in mind. Maa was a big fan of Uttam Kumar. It’s possible that her admiration influenced Baba to go ahead with his choice of casting.”
The idea is also seconded by Sromona Chakraborty, Bijoya’s grandniece. Daughter of Ruma Guha Thakurta, Sromona has sung in two Ray films. Says Sromona from Bengaluru, “Chordida (Bijoya) had three sisters and all of them were fans of Uttam Kumar. I won’t be surprised if Chordida played a role in casting Uttam Kumar for ‘Nayak’.”
Every time Ray finished writing a script, he would give it to Bijoya for correction. “Baba would first show his scripts to Maa. He wanted Maa to check his Feluda series too. That’s because Maa was heavily into reading detective novels. Baba insisted that she check if the crime detection was properly handled in the stories,” Sandip says.
Music, of course, was where Bijoya excelled. Youtube has an audio of her rendition of ‘Swapne amar mone holo’. Bijoya had taught Sromona ‘Baajilo kaharo bina’ that the latter would go onto sing in ‘Agantuk’. “Before ‘Shakha Proshaka’ was made, Chordida told Dadu (Ray) that he should get me to sing two lines in the film — ‘Mori lo mori’. Chordida had recorded ‘Baajilo kaharto bina’ for me in a cassette,” Sromona recalls.
“When ‘Charulata’ was being made, we used to have a spool recorder. Kishore Kumar was first sent a recording of Maa’s rendition of ‘Ami chini go chini’ before he actually recorded for the film. For ‘Charulata’, she had taught Madhabi Mukhopadhyay to sing ‘Phule phule dhole dhole’,” Sandip says.
Nripen Ganguli, who had assisted Ray in ‘Abhijan’ and was the associate producer of ‘Baksho Badal’, says, “Manik-da was the scriptwriter, supervisor and music director of ‘Baksho Badal’. We used a piece from ‘Mayar Khela’ for the film. Boudi had guided Ruma Guha Thakurta when she did the playback.”
Not too many know that Bijoya was trained in Atulprasad’s songs. “Atulprasad was Chordida’s uncle. She had wanted to teach me these songs since she thought they would get lost with her,” Sromona says.
Sengupta also talks about another recording Bijoya had done with mother-in-law Suprabha Ray. “Boudi’s sister, Jaya, had also joined for a rendition of our National Anthem. This project was recorded under the supervision of Sailaja Ranjan Mazumdar,” he says. But why is it that Bijoya herself never sang or acted for any Ray movies? Sandip says, “She wanted to do everything from the wings.”