Sandip Ray, the son of auteur Satyajit Ray, Monday said he never wanted to be kept in the loop about the making of the Netflix anthology of four short
films based on the stories penned by his father after giving his consent to the OTT platform for adapting them into films. The anthology released in Ray's centenary year have Srijit Mukherji's 'Forget Me Not', Abhishek Chaubey's 'Hungama Hai Kyon Barpa', Mukherji's 'Bahrupiya' and Vasan Bala's
'Spotlight'.
Sandip, who has helmed several feature films on Ray's popular fictional sleuth Feluda, told PTI he had given consent to the international OTT platform Netflix to use four stories of his father for the anthology but didn't wish to be kept in the loop "during the process of scripting, narration style and adaptation."
"That is the prerogative of the concerned directors assigned with the project, from the creative point of view," he averred. To a question, Sandip said he has watched the promo of the film but it was important to see an entire work to form one's own opinion.
"I will soon see all the four works to have my own opinion but I will form that opinion only as an individual," he said.
Sandip said, "I am hearing both praises and criticisms and that is quite natural for any work of art, including something adapted from the works of a personality like Ray."
He, however, commented during the same conversation with PTI that since a large section of the readers of these short stories (three of which were published in Ray-edited children's magazine Sandesh and one in Anandamela) were young adolescents it was important to retain their interest in the
films.
Srijit Mukherji, who had recently said in a media interview that he was ready for criticism from a section of "purist readers especially Bengalis who may not be ready for any tinkering with Ray's stories' narrative" but he knew there will be many others who will be engrossed as the plot will
progress.
Without himself posting any comments the national award-winning director from Bengal posted series of tweets that praised the handling of Ray short stories by him and two other directors. One such tweet by a netizen shared by the Chotuskon director on microblogging site read "Congrats @srijitspeaketh @alifazal9 & #ShwetaBasuPrasad for an enjoyable adaptation of a Ray story. It was always going to be a challenge; I think
#ForgetMeNot is true to the soul of a #SatyajitRay story. Also the master would have approved of the beautiful shots of #AjantaCaves."
