![]() Thankfully, the suggestion was not taken nor insisted upon. Known to be an aesthetically-challenged but big-hearted man, he found the ending of “Pather Panchali” to be too depressing and suggested that Ray change the ending to show Horihor’s family becoming part of a government cooperative program and building a new house. Bidhanchandra Ray, West Bengal’s much-loved first chief minister, ultimately financed the movie. The two miracles did happen and also a third. Shooting had to be suspended for lack of finances-wherein Ray prayed for two miracles-that Chunibala Debi (in my opinion, the star of “Pather Panchali”) who played the old aunt, Indir Thakurun, does not die in the interregnum and that the boy who plays Apu does not “physically” grow up. Satyajit Ray had to pawn his wife’s jew elry in order to finance the first stage of shooting. If there is something at the heart of Pather Panchali, it is this overwhelming power of life that asserts itself even in the face of poverty, misery and death. And in the lives of those struggling to live there. “Pather Panchali” opened the eyes of the world to the beauty that lay in the most unexpected of places-rural, poverty-striken Bengal. If ever someone lived upto their “dedication” it was Satyajit Ray. I now realize that all the time I wandered the earth, I missed seeing the splendour that lay before me, just 2 steps from my door-–a dewdrop glistening on a blade of grass”. ” I have been gone everywhere, spent a lot of money-travelled to the mountains, seen the sea…….trying always to find beauty. Translated to English (for those who have read the original, forgive me for my purely functional non-poetic translation), it says: One of the babies he “christened” was Satyajit Ray and what he composed for Ray is instantly recognizable as one of Tagore’s most famous short poems (though not many know it was for Satyajit Ray). People often approached Rabindranath Tagore to name their sons and daughters-while doing so, he would also compose a Haiku-type “dedication” to the new born.
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