Sharmila Tagore Interview: Satyajit Ray's films deal with the follies of humans
Tagore points to a 'complex' aspect in Aranyer Din Ratri, the way it deals with the issue of corruption—the fact that the guys offer bribes to the caretaker to get a place to stay in the forest rest house but are blind to the fact that it's to do as much with his lack of scruples as their own encouragement and facilitation of corruption. 'Ray deals with such fundamental quirks and follies of human beings,' says Tagore, adding, 'The hero in Nayak is treated like God, is mobbed and is under pressure. But there's a human being beneath it all. In Devi, the father-in-law deifies his unlettered daughter-in-law. A victim of his dreams, she loses her mind, feels alienated.'
Aranyer Din Ratri was shot in Chhipadohar village in Palamu district in Jharkhand (then Bihar) in April and May. 'It was very hot. Trees were all leafless and had a skeletal look in the film. We would shoot for three hours from 5.30 am to about 9 am and then 3 pm to 6 pm, till the light would be good,' recalls Tagore. 'Rest of the time we chatted, bonded and sang and danced with the Santhals, especially on full moon nights. The boys tried the local drink mohua once and swore never to have it again. It left them with such a bad hangover,' she says.
The boys stayed in a tin shed and it was so hot that Rabi Ghosh would call himself Robi Pora or Burnt Robi. She remembers her co-actor Simi Garewal and her sister staying in a bungalow in the next village while she had a tiny 10x8 room of the caretaker to live in. There was an air cooler for her which served well in the dry heat.
Aranyer Din Ratri is Ray's eighth film to have been presented at Cannes. Pather Panchali (Song of the Little Road), the first of his Apu trilogy, has played at Cannes thrice. It marked his debut in Cannes, was in the In Competition section and won the Best Human Document Award at the 1956 edition of Cannes. It was part of its Special Screenings programme in 1992 and a restored print featured in the Cannes Classics segment in 2005. Just three years back, in 2022, Pratidwandi (The Adversary) was shown in the same Cannes Classics segment, as was Charulata in 2013.
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