My first meeting with Satyajit Ray
The first-ever set of postage stamps for the new Republic of Bangladesh was issued on 29 July 1971, which not only drew worldwide attention, but also created an indelible mark in history of philately.
One day unexpectedly, I received a letter from Satyajit Ray. I admired him from a distance. I was inspired by his work, but never had the opportunity to meet him. In his letter, with reference to Bangladesh stamps, he complimented me and invited me to see him on my next visit to Kolkata.
I went to see him on 6 January 1976. My wife Aparajita, with our 4-year-old daughter Sandra, one of my elder brothers (Rabindranath) and my nephew Fagun accompanied me.
In our meeting, we did not discuss films. I talked about his interest in typography and type design with special reference to ‘Ray Roman’. But he talked about the UK issue of my Gandhi Centenary Stamp of 1969 and the first set of stamps for Bangladesh. Suddenly, from his vast collection of books he brought out a copy of ‘Myths and Legends of India’ published in 1970 which contained around 150 colour drawings by me. I was totally surprised. I felt honoured and humbled by knowing that he was aware of my work. During our meeting, Fagun took some photographs.
Unfortunately, it was our last meeting. I wrote an account of that, ‘Satyajit Ray: Amar Shesh Dekha’, which was published in Rabibarer Protidin, Kolkata, 25 April 1993 (see below).
In December 1991, my immediate elder brother, Dr Biral Mullick arranged an exhibition of my computer graphics at Gorky Sadan Kolkata. Due to ill health, Satyajit Babu could not come to the exhibition but wrote me a letter indicating his desire to see my computer graphics.
English translation by Biman Mullick of the above Letter from Satyajit Ray to Biman Mullick: 28 November 1991
Sree Biman Mullick
Kalyaneeyeshu*.
I received your letter. I am pleased to know that still you are carrying on working. It is impossible to accept your request. I am unwell, I need two more months for complete recovery.
Still I am eager to see examples of your works. I do not know how it can be possible.
Please accept my sincere greetings.
Satyajit Ray
28|11|91
* Kalyaneeyeshu, ‘ a form of address that is used in a letter to a younger person towards whom one is affectionate.
And here’s a NOTE by Biman Mullick regarding the background to the letter above:
“I had an exhibition of my computer graphics at the Gorky Sadan, Kolkata in December 1991. I wrote a letter to respected Satyajit Ray with a request to inaugurate the exhibition. This is his reply. Lady Ranu Mukherjee inaugurated the exhibition. Mr. Ray expressed his desire to see my graphics and on 9 January 1992 I went to see him and shown him my graphics. That was the last time I saw him. Based on this last visit I wrote a Bengali article called ‘Satyajit Ray: Shesh Dekha’ (Satyajit Ray: My last visit)’ The article was published on 25 April 1993 in a Bengali Journal called ‘ Pratidin’.”
Biman Mullick‘s article on Satyajit Ray in the Calcutta publication, Robibarer Protidin, on 25 April 1993.
My Last Meeting with Satyajit Ray
By Biman Mullick
The Publisher of Pippa Rann Books very kindly asked me to translate my Bengali article ‘Satyajit Ray: Shesh Dekha’ published in a Bengali journal called ‘Rabibarer Pratidin’ (Sunday edition of Daly Pratidin) on 25 April 1993. Here is my feeble attempt.
Over a year had passed since the death of Satyajit Ray.
Like each of the unforgettable frames in every one of his films, his role and his work will remain immortal in the minds of Bengalis.
Biman Mallick, a London-based graphic designer and artist, met him on the 9th of January 1992.
‘Definitely’ said, Satyajit Ray.
At the time of my departure, that was his single-word remark in response to my final words, ‘We will meet again’. That is a typically Bengali way of saying goodbye, somewhat like ‘ Au revoir’. He said it without hesitation, and it was genuine. In his voice there was a tone of optimism and confidence.
I had gone to Calcutta at the end of December 1991 to be present at the exhibition of my Computer Graphics at Gorky Sadan, a well-known venue for cultural activities situated in the heart of the city. Because the great Satyajit Ray had earlier expressed admiration for my work and showed his kind affection towards me, I had written requesting him to inaugurate the exhibition. He replied quickly, but wrote, ‘….It is impossible to accept your request. I am unwell. I need two more months for complete recovery. Still I am eager to see examples of your works. I do not know how it can be possible.’…
I felt honoured and humbled that Satyajit Ray was interested enough, even in his poor state of health, to want to see my work. So, I rang him and asked if I could come to his place to show him my computer graphics. He kindly said that I could come any day between 10 am and 12 noon.
Isn’t it interesting that those whose time is very precious, those people are less miserly with their time? I asked if I could come and see him on 9th January at 10 am. He agreed. I had noticed that it was easy to talk to him on the phone, and it was also easy to make an appointment with him for a meeting.
There had been a considerable gap of time between my last visit (1976) and this last visit. During my previous visit, my wife Aparajita, baby daughter Sandra, one of my elder brothers BimalChand, and my nephew Fagun were with me. We had visited him in his second-floor apartment in an old building at Bishop Lefroy Road. This old apartment featured an unusually high ceiling. An electric fan was hanging from the ceiling without movement spreading its three wooden arms. On this last visit, I did not notice any change in the apartment. It was exactly as I saw before. The walls are covered with large glass-panelled almirahs. They were packed with collections of books diverse in subjects ranging from philology to Bertolt Brecht. There were huge piles of paper on big tops of large wooden tables. It was a total chaos; but remarkably an organized chaos.
Indeed, it was organized. The last time I met him, I raised the subject of his interest in typography and asked him about the serif typeface that he had invented a few years earlier: ‘Ray Roman’. Ray immediately brought out ‘Ray Roman’s draft from the middle of that well-organized chaos. With great enthusiasm, he discussed the features and other aspects of the alphabets.
I remember that in an answer to my question on the section which looks like “V” on the middle of the uppercase “M” he explained in detail what it should look like in the case of “Ray Roman”.
***
There is a pride in admiration. I am proud of that. I respect Ray’s creativity. In the early fifties a new movement began in the world of Bengali poetry. Suddenly, the poetry lovers rediscovered a poet called Jibanananda Das. Another silent movement worked behind that incident. The emergence of Signet Press in the world of Bengali book publishing. Publisher Dilip Kumar Gupta or DK for short introduced a lofty standard in the selection of subjects. Even more remarkable was the aspect of graphic presentation. And that presenter was none other than Satyajit Ray himself. Starting from typography, book design, calligraphy, type font design, cover design and illustration a newcomer artist brought a taste of innovation. The combination of sensibility with rationalism took place in his artwork. Satyajit Ray added fine art with science.
Among the many covers, the cover of the collection of poems called ‘Banalata Sen’ falls in the category of classics. ‘Sravasti’s artwork’ (1) was reflected on the cover. The Cover seemed like saying ‘Where had you been all this time?'(2) ‘raising its eyes resembling a bird’s nest”. (3) Jibanananda’s poems of ‘pleasing pain, soft and bright'(4) became a ‘picture with the grace of poem’ (5) in Ray’s hands. (Here in this paragraph I blended several lines (1/2/3/4/5) from his poems in a different context. I added a translation of the poem at the end for you to look at.)
His arrival in the film world is undoubtedly important, but it has done a lot of damage to the field of graphic design. When I made this remark, he said with a soft smile, ‘If I have to move away from the world of film, I would devote myself in typography and experiment with graphics.’ Of course, staying in the world of film, he has experimented a lot with typography. The examples remain in the title of his films, the poster of the films, remain on the pages of ‘Sandesh’, a children’s magazine founded by his father Sukumar Ray and revived by him.
It was 1953 or 1954. Suddenly one day I heard that my favourite artist Satyajit Ray is planning to make a movie of ‘Pather Panchali’, a Bengali novel by BibhutiBhushan Bandyopadhyay of immense literary charm. I proclaimed with a loud voice to my friends, ‘Look, this will be a great movie.’ My friends commented something like, ‘where is the guarantee that a completely unknown young man who has never made a film will make a good movie?’ My friends were naturally suspicious. Many commented that a movie of ‘Pather Panchali’ is impossible to make.’ It is possible when it is touched by the real talent’. I argued with firm conviction.
“Topor” (Bengali bride groom’s head gear), a collection of short stories by my friend HariShankar Bandyopadhyay is going to be published. Naturally, he asked me to design the book cover. It was his first book and it was my first design for a cover of a book. The book was published in due course in 1954 which incidentally coincided with the release of ‘Pather Panchali’. To show his appreciation my friend HariShankar Babu took me to one of our local cinema hall called Parbati at Howrah to watch the film. I still remember the experience. I remember when we came out of the cinema hall, we were so overwhelmed by the experience we were literally speechless for a considerable period of time. We just walked silently without exchanging our views on the film, which is very common among Bengali cinema-goers.
Ray is recognized as one of the great film-makers of all time. If his work as a graphic artist is properly evaluated, it will not be difficult to easily recognize him as one of the great graphic artists of all time. His artwork is timeless.
Once a journalist asked me from whom I was most inspired as a graphic artist. ‘Satyajit Ray’ was my unequivocal answer. The journalist was surprised. Not many people have any idea of Ray’s contribution to the world of graphics.
After the independence of Bangladesh in 1972, he saw the design of the first set of postage stamps for Bangladesh and wrote an unsolicited letter informing me of his appreciation. The man I have come to respect from afar for so long has bridged the distance. He asked me to pay him a visit in my next trip to India. I had to wait a long time to go to India and pay him a visit.
When I met him a few months ago, he still talked about my stamp designs. His health was not good. He spoke a little less that day than before. He looked at my computer graphics with interest. He looked my pictures in ‘Hanuman Saves the Prince’. * He said, ‘Very good work’.
Nimai Da i.e. Professor Nemai Sadhan Bose** asked me to ask Satyajit Babu to write an opinion about my work. I requested him as he advised. Ray also agreed. Within a few days of this last visit, he became even more ill. He was admitted to a nursing home. I did not regret that he couldn’t write an opinion on my new works. I am just satisfied that he liked the pictures. That was my ultimate reward.
A video of this last meeting was taken by Fagun. I managed to tell him that as a teenager, I was inspired by his graphics and still I get inspiration from his works. He was deeply pleased to hear this and expressed his pleasure with a soft smile of satisfaction. That smile is embedded permanently in the video of my mind. Which cannot be erased. ————————————————————————————————————————————–Above is the rough translation of my Bengali article “Shesh Dekha” on Satyajit Ray published in ‘Rabibarer Pratidin’ (Sunday issue of Everyday) 25 April 1993. The article covered the entire top half of this broadsheet publication accompanied by a portrait of Ray by Hirak Sen. The article also accompanied by a photograph taken by my nephew Fagun of Ray showing me the draft of ‘Ray Roman’ type font. This was the first time my contribution was published with such prominence. Not only that, the editor also added an introduction at the beginning of the article. That kind of honourI never had before.
Dear Prabhu, I wrote a post script of this article which I will translate and send it to you in my next post. Biman 12 July 2020
Here is a translation of poem ‘Banalta Sen’ which I found from the internet. Translation is just a translation; it cannot be compared with the original.
BANALATA SEN
A thousand years I have walked these paths,
From the harbour at Malacca in the dark of night
To the straits of Ceylon at glimmer of dawn.
Much have I travelled –
The grey world of Ashoka-Bimbisara,
Further yet,
The dark city of Vidharbha;
Around me life foams its stormy breath.
Weary of soul,
I found a moment’s respite in her presence –
She: Banalata Sen of Natore
Her hair the ancient darkness of Vidisha,
Face a sculpture from Sravasthi.
A sailor in distant oceans, rudderless, lost,
When hoves into view
Island of grass through fronds of cinnamon,
A green relief
So she felt to me.
In the darkness she spoke –
“All these years, where had you been?”
Her eyebrows arched like the soaring wings of a bird –
She: Banalata Sen of Natore.
With the sound of dewdrops,
Comes evening.
The sunset fringe of gold on the eagle’s wing
Melts into the night
And the glow of fireflies.
Birds return to nest –
The shop of life
Shuttered for the day.
Left behind in the darkness
Face to face –
Only she: Banalata Sen of Natore.
————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-* “Hanuman Saves the Prince. Story and pictures by Biman Mullick Harper Collins 1990 ISBN 0-0-00-313482-2 (out of print)
** Nemai Sadhan Bose was two years older than me but we were great friends since 1954. He was a historian and became Vice Chancellor of Biswabharati.