Sonar Kella (1974)

Summer holidays would usually be bifurcated into when my father would pore over ICSE

Examination answer scripts and later when we would pack our bags for a vacation after he had submitted the mark sheets. Baba was the senior Mathematics teacher in Don Bosco School in Calcutta as well as the co-chief examiner of the ICSE Boards. So, during the first half of the holidays the whole house would be stuffed with cardboard boxes of scripts that would eventually decide the fate of youngsters who scribbled their knowledge of numbers on them. Or so, as we were made to believe in those gullible years by every teacher in that non-digitised world of ours!
Satyajit Ray's Feluda flick, Sonar Kella takes me back to one humid morning during summer recess when my father announced, "Let's just quickly finish today's quota and in the afternoon we will watch Sonar Kella!" My eyes lit up. I quickly made him a cup of tea (I was 15 then) and got him his specs. He sat down, brandished his red pen over the scripts, and started deciding the 'fates' of the helpless children. Intermittently, he asked me to cross check the calculations so that there were no errors later in the tally sheet. Sharp at 12 noon, he wrapped up, we both finished our ablutions, gobbled our lunch and sat down to watch the film. For the 16th time. Ignoring my mother's high-pitched, "God! How many times more..."

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A girl to woman transition (Samapti)

There's something about Satyajit Ray's Samapti that is bound to touch the chords of a woman's heart. The last movie in the Teen Konya series (Postmaster, the first, is a superlative endeavour to project a young girl's isolation; Monihara however, is the weak link) is a brilliant romance carrying with it the whiff of rural Bengal. But even amidst all the intricacies of the human relationships heavy on the love quotient, there lies a subtle take on how a young tomboy grows and matures into a complete woman who recognises the significance of love in her life. Call it a story of evolution of Minu's personal character or how the young couple dismiss their ego and initial misunderstandings to unite, Ray's 1961 film, based on a short story by Rabindranath Tagore, is a masterpiece that will draw all and sundry. If you haven't watched it yet, you really cannot fathom what you are missing...

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Adventure on the holy banks (Jai Baba Felunath)

Satyajit Ray did with his films what many filmmakers of his generation didn't. He infused in his scripts the sights, sounds and smells of the places where his story is set. So, along with the characters of the film and their varied idiosyncrasies, the place attains a personality. Like how Rajasthan does in Sonar Kella, how Shundi does in Gupi Gayen Bagha Bayen and Varanasi in 1979's Jai Baba Felunath.While you follow Prodosh Mitra and his party as he unravels the mystery behind the stolen Ganesha statuette, you start noticing how Ray brings Varanasi and the holy banks alive. The place adds to the fun and adventure of the sleuth's exploits. While the days are used to discover the frantic activities in the vibrant surroundings, the dark nights heighten the eerie nature of the serpentine lanes. That is the fun in Ray's Feluda films. They are detective stories as well as entertaining travelogues, something that Sandip Ray's film miss...

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Our childhood hero (Shriman Prithviraj)

If I remember correctly, it was in standard seven. One day, we all came to school with a big smile on our face. The first thing that we friends asked each other on entering the classroom after the assembly prayers were over was whether we saw Shriman Prithviraj the previous night on national television. The reply was unanimous. Yes, said all. And then it started. The dissection and bisection of every scene. The constant repetition of the funny one-liners. The feelings for the pre-pubescent Rashik were enumerated. The joys at the union of Rashik and Amalabala was pronounced. In short, an entire classroom of 58 odd students chirped and bonded over this 1973 Tarun Majumdar masterpiece. Such is the fan following of this cult classic that even today when we school friends meet over a cuppa, we relive that day in class seven when this film was the topic of discussion for an entire week.

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Impeccable imposter (Mahapurush from Kapurush O Mahapurush)

This is a story where the imposter turns out to be the true survivor. As admitted by one of the most clever men in the film, this imposter is learned, has vast knowledge, is steeped in history of several lands, has a fantastic memory, is a thorough glibtalker, understands mass psychology, can convince people about almost everything, is a terrific actor and hence the perfect Mahapurush!

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Introducing Feluda (Sonar Kella)

Last year my husband gave me a lovely surprise on my birthday. There is a place in Rajasthan that we both really wanted to visit. But somehow, something or the other kept cropping up and despite making prior plans, we had to postpone our tour everytime. Such was my desperation that I had started calling it the 'Jinxed Land'. Then one day it just happened. He came home. He kept his bag and other papers and went to freshen up. I picked up the lot and while taking it to our room, saw a printout of a train ticket. I couldn't believe my eyes. They were tickets to JAISALMER, the golden land we both so wanted to go to. I screamed, shrieked and jumped in glee while he just kept staring at me with the most beautiful smile ever...

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