KOCHI: May is a month when the gulmohur across my window bursts out with fiery blossoms. When the fragrance of Alphonso mangoes ripening in the hay, fills my apartment. It is also a month, which starts with my guru’s birthday.
My guru, Satyajit Ray, was born on May 2, 1921. I remember my first encounter with him. I had gone to Kolkata with the express purpose of meeting him, because I wanted to train under him. I did not even have his number. I got it from the telephone directory!
When I called, he answered himself, and was matter-of-fact. “Come and see me, only if you are not an actor,” he said.
When I walked into his house, at Kolkata, it was a fortuitous moment. An old man, bearing the news of a much coveted prize, had walked in with me. And I was credited with bringing good luck!( of having the feet of Lakshmi, as they say in Bengal). I accepted this compliment gracefully.
Thereafter, Satyajit Ray told me about the many do’s and don’ts before he allowed me on his sets. “Don’t ask questions on the sets, have a working knowledge of Bengali before the commencement of the shoot,” he said. I was to observe, not make my presence felt in any way.
But, for me, it was like a gift from the blue. I was a trainee observer on the film, ‘Agantuk’.I did not know it then, of course, but it was to be his last film. My guru passed away after completing that film.
I learnt more from observing him those few months during the shoot and through the edit, than I would anywhere else.
I would sit in the compound of the Tollygunje studio ,enjoying a cup of tea with Anilda,the production controller who had been with him for many years.I would hear about incidents that happened on sets many years ago.I would chat with Nemai Ghosh, his photo-chronicler down the ages, and eat rice, macher jhol and mishti with the crew. And sit silently beside the tall,taciturn and bearded direction assistant on the metro train ride back home.
On his last trip to Mumbai for the re-recording of Agantuk, I remember sitting on the sofa of the Taj suite. Boudi ( his wife, Bimala Ray) had brought me a navy blue Bengal cotton sari with a red border.And some relatives, who had come to bid him goodbye, had brought along their little kitten, which slept curled up into a tight round ball beside me.
It suddenly woke up and jumped away. I looked at its round imprint on the soft sofa. I looked up at my guru. I remember feeling an overwhelming sense of gratitude toward this great man with his prolific body of work.
Ismail Merchant was not my guru.in fact, he was my boss. But I learnt a zillion things from him. We shared a common respect for Ray’s work,a similar aesthetic,a love of beautiful things and food.
When we were on the pre-production of In Custody, he took me wherever he went.I sat in on all his meetings with the cast and crew. He showed me how you could buy organza and muslin for a few rupees at Mumbai’s Hindmata market. And make them look like a million bucks on costumes worn by Hollywood A-listers for Oscar-winning films. He took me shopping for antiques at Chor bazaar.
Every night we went to Shashi Kapoor’s house for dinner, where we ate delicately cooked meals, on porcelain plates that belonged to the late Jennifer Kapoor. I believe my love for cooking was nurtured by Ismailbhai.In London, he would send me shopping to the Selfridges grocery store next door,for avocado and artichoke.I would watch as he lightly marinated the chicken and bring it out from the oven: crisp, stuffed with fluffy rice and sesame. He taught me to lay an elegant table in minutes, for the most interesting array of people. Ismailbhai taught me that one could not always be patient on film sets. That sometimes it was necessary to shout and scream. Ismailbhai gave me a voice.
On May 25, 2005, I was in London in a meeting with my first investor for a film. On that day, Ismailbhai died at St Mary’s hospital, at the age of 68.
I miss both my gurus.
Smita Kudva (The writer is a Mumbai-based filmmaker)