| Ray Fiction |
 |
| |
When published in the Annual numbers, Ray used to draw entirely different kinds of frontispieces. Royal Bengal Mystery , for instance, was drawn with speedy scratches and lines with pen and ink. |
|
Satyajit Ray the filmmaker becoming a best-selling author of Bengali fiction as well was accidental. As a young man, he contributed two short stories in English to the Amrita Bazar Patrika , then a major Kolkata (previously Calcutta) daily --- one under the name S. Roy and the other S. Ray. |
| They were written casually, with no plan to write more. “I (Ray) had no literary bent at all, and never thought I might one day write stories” until 1961 when “a poet friend of mine and I hit upon the idea of reviving Sandesh ”, the Ray family magazine for children. As an editor, Ray felt he should contribute. |
 |
Book cover of the same novel. Ray's approach is now totally different. He uses white silhouettes to express the lightning in the jungle, as thunder plays a vital role
in the story |
|
So the first issue of the revived Sandesh carried a Bengali version of Edward Lear's The Jumblies, and the second his first short story in Bengali with his own illustrations. That was the birth of Ray the writer who went on wielding his pen till he breathed his last.
|
|
 |
| |
A rare frontispiece, Calamity in Kailash , retrieved from the Autumn number 1974 of a periodical. The sad contrast between the solid temple and the helpless pulpy corpse are the expressive features |
| |
 |
| |
The only collection of
Ray's fairy tales |
| |
|
In a period spanning from 1961 to 1992, Ray wrote over 75 stories on a wide variety of themes in addition to 35 tales of crime detection featuring Feluda, the most popular and best-loved ‘private investigator' of contemporary Bengali fiction, and about 40 sci-fi stories revolving round the character of the scientist-inventor Professor Shonku, who, in the author's opinion, “may be said to be a mild-mannered version of (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's) Professor Challenger”.
|
That his stories have been translated not only in nearly all major Indian languages but many international languages as well is testimony to Ray's global popularity as a fiction writer.
Ray made 36 films --- features and shorts --- in a career that covered four decades. He took to writing stories as seriously as filmmaking. As a schoolgoer, he gorged himself on the works of Jules Verne, H.G. Wells and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle which indicated his taste for tales of science fiction, crime detection, the fantastic and the supernatural. As an author, he wrote mostly on similar themes.
“I enjoy writing stories for its own sake and derive a pleasure from it which is quite distinct from the pleasure of the vastly more intricate business of making a film,” wrote Ray. “I have written stories both during the making of a film and in the free period --- usually lasting about six months --- between films.”
|
 |
| |
The boy, drawn by thick and bold brush strokes, has forgotten his identity. Towering over all other things in his surroundings, the boy tries to remember who he really is
( Phatik and The Juggler ) |
| |
|
 |
| |
A facsimile of Satyajit Ray's first short story written originally in English in 1941 |
|
|
|
|
|
