Notebook gift for Ray buffs on maestro’s birth anniversary

KOLKATA: There’s a treat in store for Ray lovers — a notebook whose pages are peppered with posters made by the maestro himself.
The 164-page notebook, which will be unveiled at Ray’s Bishop Lefroy Road residence by his son Sandip on Saturday (Ray’s birth anniversary) afternoon, is a collaborative venture between the Society for Preservation of Satyajit Ray Archives (also known as Ray Society) and Starmark.
The flexiback cover notebook, with its lined pages having a portrait of Ray at the bottom of each page, has posters of 15 of Ray’s films. In a six-page foreword, Sandip Ray writes about his illustrious father’s life in Santiniketan, the advertisements he created and the innovations he brought about in ads and how Ray would design the posters and booklets for his films. The foreword provides many little-known insights into the maestro’s work.
“After every four pages of the notebook, we have put in two pages of a Ray film poster and a short write-up by Debashish Mukhopadhyay, who has a large collection of Ray’s works, in the facing page,” said Pinaki De, a well-known graphic designer who came up with the idea of this notebook and took it to Sandip Ray. After Ray’s approval, he approached Starmark CEO Gautam Jatia. “Jatia readily agreed to the project. In fact, there will be more collaborative ventures between Ray Society and Starmark,” said De.
The notebook, titled ‘Short Takes’, has posters of Pather Panchali (1955), Aparajito (1956), Jalsaghar (1958), Apur Sansar (1959), Kanchenjungha (1962), Abhijaan (1962), Mahanagar (1963), Charulata (1964), Nayak (1966), Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne ((1968), Aranyer Din Ratri (1969), Asani Sanket (1973), Sonar kella (1974), Ghare-Baire (1984) and Aguntuk (1991). The facing pages of these posters have reviews of the respective films and Mukhopadhyay’s anecdotes on Ray’s making of that particular film. The anecdotes and stories about the films that Mukhopadhyay share have never been in public domain before.
“I have not touched the posters, but only provided the context. The design is minimalist and trendy but I have kept the spirit of Ray alive,” said De. He added that merchandising Ray is a difficult prospect and people wouldn’t want to buy a notebook that had an old-world look and feel. “So I had to make it trendy and modern,” he said. Ray Society CEO Arup Kumar De coordinated the entire project.
Starmark CEO Jatia says he’s excited about the notebook. “It has come out very well and I’m sure everyone will love it,” he said. The notebook, priced at Rs 225, can be pre-ordered from Starmark stores and its website and will be purchased off the shelves after a few days. And there’s more news for Ray fans: Jatia said that next on the cards is a Feluda diary (notebook) to mark Feluda’s 50th anniversary next year, followed by a ‘Sandesh’ omnibus.
Ray Society CEO Arup Kumar De said that the notebook would provide a delightful peek into Ray’s works.