Satyajit Ray made around five films based on the short stories and novels written by Rabindranath Tagore—that was the most number of times he has ever adapted any one writer’s work in his films.
It was at Shantiniketan that Ray learned the indispensable qualities of being a good painter and an artist. In later years, his drawings, sketches, illustrations and designs have inspired many across the globe.
To celebrate creativity, rural Bengal and humanity from the works of Ray and Tagore, the Pravasana Club, in association with Anubhav, Resonance, Ghungroo, Anahita, and Language Clubs of Heritage Institute of Technology, organised a two day event ‘Ray-trospective’ and ‘Gitanjali’ on May 19-20, 2022, in the campus.
Both the events exhibited some of the beautiful drawings and paintings made by the engineering students inspired from the movies directed by Ray based on the short stories and novels written by Tagore.
Adapting Ray’s Films For The Modern Times
Apart from these, two films made by the students of the college were also screened during the event. Both the films drew inspiration from the methodologies adopted by Ray, in making movies that won several awards in various film festivals in the world, including the Oscars.
“Satyajit Ray always depicted the problems faced by common man during his journey through life and the stories written by Rabindranath Tagore also displayed the same. Moreover they glorified the rural Bengal in front of the global audience. This gave us the inspiration to celebrate the works of these two leaders in arts, films and literature thus giving us ample space for creativity to explore humanity at its best,” said Saurav Sarkar, 2nd year student of B.Tech in Electrical Engineering.
One of the films ‘Anantar’ which was screened on May 19 depicted the religious superstitions which are still being followed in many villages across Bengal. “Here we tried our best to unfold the story of a girl who became a victim of religious superstitions performed in many villages in Bengal even now,” said Saurav who is the director of the film.
The other one was ‘Itibritta’ which depicts an individual’s struggle in life amidst the challenges. ‘Itibritta’ was directed by Anujit Maity, B.Tech, Chemical Engineering, 3rd year student of the institute.
“The film reflects the desire of an individual to perform successfully in life given the right platform but does life really gives that right platform,” said Anujit who completed the film within four days with his other team members.
“I was working as a member of the technical team and created some awesome visual moments for the film. Again I applied the basics learned from Ray’s movies,” said Shambo Roy, a B.Tech student, Computer Science, who was one of the leading members in the technical team for the film ‘Anantar’ as well as the coordinator for the film ‘Itibritta’.
Ray And Tagore Were Both Creative Geniuses
Humanity was celebrated in these events organized for two days by the young techies who emphasized on the humane aspect of today’s world, which is greatly influenced by digitization paving the way to artificial intelligence, data science, robotics and much more.
Ray’s movies always cited the common problems and the characters portrayed the real faces of every Indian amidst the dynamic environment prevailing in the world. Pictographically, the Indian common man was showcased through his films to the global audience.
Tagore on the other hand wanted India to be cosmopolitan. He wanted that cosmopolitism should prevail over nationalism and internationalism since both of them breed colonization within a country.
Recently, an event was organized by Heritage Law College on Rabindra Jayanti which witnessed an engaging talk given by professor Partha Pratim Basu from Department of International Relations, Jadavpur University, on this topic.
All these events created an excitement in the campus that moves beyond imagination drawing the picture of humanity which will be cherished forever.