May 2 marked the 104th birth anniversary of Satyajit Ray, India’s most famous filmmaker. A crowd funded street museum was inaugurated on the street where he lived.
This is Sandip Roy in Kolkata
But the best birthday tribute to the man is some of his masterpiece films have been painstakingly restored and released in theatres over the last year. Its a rare opportunity to see those films as they were meant to be seen - on the big screen. Films like Mahanagar - the Big City. And Nayak - the Hero
R D Bansal was the producer of several of Ray’s classics. Varsha Bansal is his granddaughter. She says the negatives were kept at their offices in Kolkata. The room was air conditioned but time, humidity and wear and tear was taking its toll.
VB1: the humidity control and all of that. You know, it was just playing havoc. You know, we we would review every three months and the quality was just going down.
By then her grandfather had passed away. Varsha broached the idea of restoring the films to her father. She knew it would be a passion project. But Varsha says her grandfather’s fame had come from these films he produced for Ray.
VB2: firstly we should this is a heritage cinema. And, you know, just Baba's name has come from these six films. And just to, you know, take his legacy forward.
Ray’s legacy is indeed tied up with R D Bansal’s. Many of his films open with the words R D Bansal Nibedito or Presented by R D Bansal.
But R D Bansal was a curious partner for Satyajit Ray. Ray made films in Bengali, that too arty films. R D Bansal was not Bengali. He wasn’t even from the world of films. He came from a family involved in the marble business in Agra, the home of the Taj Mahal. But he craved bright lights, big city.
VB3: what he has told me that the age of 16, he just, uh, he knew somebody here in Calcutta and he decided to run away. So I know it sounds very filmy.
In Kolkata he continued with the marble business. He happened to be supplying marble to a movie theatre.
VB4: he saw that, you know, people would buy tickets and then enter the cinema. There was no credit system.
That intrigued him because he was tired of the credits he had to extend in his business. In time he bought the theatre and then another and another. Soon he decided to dip his toes in producing a film and it turned out to be a hit.
That’s when his path crossed with Ray. And he produced Mahanagar - the Big City. A film about a middle class Bengali woman entering the work force.
VB5: It was a lot of courage for him to back a project like that. it was a disaster commercially. It was a disaster. But he was very happy.
He liked the theme. And he liked that Ray planned everything meticulously. He believed in Ray even when the films didnt make money.
VB6: luckily we had the parallel business of the marble, which sort of sustained us.
And he did get fame. Ray’s films took him to the Berlin Film Festival, the first in his family yo go abroad.
VB7: 50, 60 people came to see him off at the airport, you know, to Garland him and that
That’s why it only made sense for Varsha Bansal to restore the films that made a marble manufacturer from Agra into the producer of world classic cinema. Pixeon in Mumbai which was restoring Hollywood classics like Where Eagles Dare was excited to try and restore an Indian film. It was a painstaking process.
VB8: every frame was sort of scanned and there was a lot of manual labor involved.
It took about 18 months. They sent the restored to Criterion Collection in the US which normally does its own restorations. Varsha waited with bated breath.
VB9: Every morning I would just open my email. I said, I don't know what I'm going to see. But then they finally approved and they said, this is fabulous. We love it
But her greatest reward was seeing the film in a theatre in India. As the last frame with The END came on
VB10: The entire audience just clapped after the film when that Samapt comes in.
VB11:now it's really like a like a dream come true
Twice over. If R D Bansal helped bring Satyajit Ray’s visions to life 50 years ago, now his granddaughter is ensuring they have an afterlife.
This is Sandip Roy in Kolkata for KALW