Satyajit Ray (2 May 1921 – 23 April 1992) was an Indian film director, writer, illustrator and music composer. He directed 36 films, including feature films, documentaries and shorts. He was also a fiction writer, publisher, calligrapher, music composer, graphic designer and film critic. His first film, Pather Panchali, won eleven international prizes, including the inaugural Best Human Document award at the 1956 Cannes Film Festival. He is widely considered to have been one of the greatest filmmakers of all time.
About Satyajit Ray in brief
Satyajit Ray (2 May 1921 – 23 April 1992) was an Indian film director, writer, illustrator and music composer. He directed 36 films, including feature films, documentaries and shorts. He was also a fiction writer, publisher, calligrapher, music composer, graphic designer and film critic. His first film, Pather Panchali, won eleven international prizes, including the inaugural Best Human Document award at the 1956 Cannes Film Festival. He later produced a documentary, The Inner Eye, about the painters Nandalal Bose and Ben Behode. Ray received many major awards in his career, including 32 Indian National Film Awards, a Golden Lion,. a Golden Bear, 2 Silver Bears, and a number of additional awards at international film festivals and ceremonies. The Government of India honoured him with the Bharat Ratna, its highest civilian award, in 1992. He is widely considered to have been one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, celebrated for works such as The Apu Trilogy, The Music Room, The Big City and Charulata. Ray was born in Calcutta into a Bengali Kayastha family which was prominent in the field of arts and literature. In 1978, he was awarded an honorary degree by Oxford University. Feluda, the sleuth, and Professor Shonku, the scientist in his science fiction stories, are popular fictional characters created by him.
Ray’s ancestry can be traced back for at least ten generations. His family had acquired the name ‘Ray’ from the Mughals. Although they were Bengli Kayasthas, the Rays were ‘Vaishnavas’ as against majority BengaliKayasth as ‘Shaktos’. According to the history of the Ray family, one of their ancestors, Shri Ramsunder Deo, was a native of Chakdah village in Nadia district of present-day West Bengal, India. His descendants migrated to Sherpur in East Bengal and settled down in the village of Masua in Katiadi upazila of Kishoreganj district. Ray studied at Bgunge Government High School, and completed his BA in economics at Presidency College. In 1940, his mother insisted that he study at Visva-Bharati University in Santiniketan, founded by Rabathore Tagore. His grandfather, Upendrakishore Ray, was an illustrator, philosopher, publisher and amateur astronomer. He also set up a printing press by the name of U.S. Ray and Sons, which formed a crucial backdrop to Satiajit’s life. His father was Sukumar Ray, a pioneering Bengali writer of nonsense rhyme and children’s literature. The family survived on Suprabha Ray’s meager income. Ray later came to appreciate Oriental art, and later produced the documentary Inner Eye about the famous painters Bandalal Behode and Ben Bandalar.
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