Satyajit Ray directed only three films in Hindi, two of them for television, but his presence over the history of Indian cinema looms so large that it is difficult to ignore his impact on filmmakers across the globe. Critics and filmmakers from around the world routinely name him and his Apu Trilogy among their favourite directors and films of all time. He is the only Indian to have won an Honorary Lifetime Achievement Oscar and be placed in the pantheon of all-time greats of world cinema like Jean Renoir, Ingmar Bergman and Akira Kurosawa.

Born into a distinguished Bengali family, his grandfather Upendra Kishore was an innovator and writer of children’s books. His father was an illustrator, cartoonist and writer of verse. Ray lost his father when he was just three and he was raised by his mother, Suprabha as a single parent. He developed an interest in Western classical music at an early age and learned to read and write music. His other passion, of course, was watching movies and compiling scrapbooks of film memorabilia. His mother encouraged him to study art at Shantiniketan and although he didn’t finish his course, he learnt to draw from the master teacher Nandlal Bose. Since he couldn’t watch movies at Shantiniketan, he started reading film books and would later come back and form the Calcutta Film Society in 1947 with friend and film critic Chidananda Dasgupta.

Before making his film debut with Pather Panchali (1955) he worked in an advertising agency where he gained experience as a graphic artist and designer. This experience in turn led him to make elaborate storyboards for each of his films. During a six-month stint in London, he watched over 100 films. These included De Sica’s The Bicycle Thief (1948) and Renoir’s The Rules of The Game (1939), which had a tremendous influence on him.

Ray’s Apu trilogy, based on Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay’s semi- autobiographical novel Pather Panchali, shows evidence of the neo-realist ideology - shooting on location, sometimes with unknown actors and a deep-rooted empathy towards the human condition. Ray made his first Hindi/Urdu film, Shatranj Ke Khiladi (1977) during the Emergency. Based on a story by Munshi Premchand, it was set around the time when the British government annexed the kingdom of Awadh from the weak ruler Wajid Ali Shah (Amjad Khan) who was driven more by his passion for music and dance than state-craft. On a parallel track, two rich zamindars (Saeed Jaffery and Sanjeev Kumar) obsessively play chess unmindful of their surroundings and the events unfolding around them. With sumptuous sets and Bombay stars (Amitabh Bachchan lent his baritone for the film’s voiceover) it was Ray’s costliest film, but a box-office failure. He also directed two short films for television, Pikoo (1980) and Sadgati (1981), the former a sad tale about an upper class Bengali family seen through the eyes of the little boy Pikoo, and the latter derived from a Premchand story about rural exploitation starring New Cinema stars like Om Puri and Smita Patil.

Ray passed away in Kolkata on the 23rd of April, 1992, leaving behind a powerful legacy of film making. Satyajit Ray was the proud recipient of over 30 National Film Awards for his exceptional work, alongside several international awards and recognitions. He was also awarded the prestigious Bharat Ratna in 1992.