A tryst with Ray

I have 15 days here at home before I go back to London. Twelve actually. I am lost in a space warp. I am opening drawers in my table look...

I have 15 days here at home before I go back to London. Twelve actually. I am lost in a space warp. I am opening drawers in my table looking for an old letter, only to realise that I had placed it carefully among a sheaf of other letters in the last drawer of my table top in my little bedsit in London which isn8217;t even mine anymore. I had checked out three months ago, when I had left London for Delhi. Complete with that Picasso poster I had stuck above the cistern in my box-like loo. I had nearly missed it when my tired friend, who had doubled up as a packer, irritatedly pointed it out. My efforts to make her laugh narrating how I had stuck up Pablo8217;s famous La Course8217;, of women with naked breasts in motion, to create a sense of dynamic space in my 3 by 3 ft toilet did not succeed. An impatient nod and a jerky pull, and the last trace of me in my first ever room in London was gone.

So when I saw the same painting grace Rosalind Miles8217; The Women8217;s History of the World, I let out a rather suddenquot;what!quot;, startling my father who was struggling with the first line of The Jacques Derrida Reader. Father and daughter sitting in the same study reading very different books is a familiar scene at our home on Saturday mornings. When I am not in London. Anyway, I am a great one at lateral thinking. Often with hilarious results. I concocted a mental image of ol8217; Pablo sitting on the pot in my box toilet back in London, reading Miles8217; book approvingly.

I have spent the last many days and nights suffering permutations of elements, personal and strange, contemporary and historical, real and imagined. All I can say is, it is a familiar suffering, and one that usually unfolds before I make a journey. And sometimes like I am doing now, I try to disengage one element from the other, which needless to add is arduous.

It was a lavishly yellow sari that I wore. Like the ones that brides wear in morning weddings here. For an audition for a film, it was an obviously inappropriate outfit, and veryuncharacteristic of me. I rarely wear saris and I hate yellow. As much as I love black. Every other figure in that august room seems inchoate now. And there was Satyajit Ray.

And Ray it was. Sitting on a tin chair with wornout arms, he was wearing a sparkling white dhoti and kurta. Reminiscent of a school dramatics teacher, patiently trying out reams of excited would-be stageplayers, he was calling out names. Except, he was authoritative and very arrogant. He called out for me gruffly. As I walked up demurely, he motioned me to sit down. I could hear my own panic. Panic didn8217;t sound very good. All the lines that had been distributed on badly photocopied pieces of paper an hour before were reeling past my eyes like a television presenter8217;s nightmare come true.

But he didn8217;t ask me to utter even a sound. Just pulled out a thick black rimmed pair of spectacles and placed it on my face. And handed a book to me which I remember was upside down, so he surely didn8217;t intend me to read from it. And thank goodnesshe didn8217;t, as I cannot read Bengali. Before I could evaporate, Ray smiled, and said, quot;Call it off. She8217;s the one.quot; It was official. I was the select actress for his next film. And in the lead role. The last film I saw in London at that adorable south bank was Bergman8217;s The Seventh Seal. I remember they had screened a Ray retrospective days earlier and I had missed it for some obscure reason. And I recall my trepidation because I had managed to miss Ray8217;s famous trilogy all over again. Pather Panchali, Apur Sansar, Aparajita. I have never seen these films. Only heard of them from my father, a loyal Rayist. And just like he disapproves of my hairstyle, one of his sorest points with me is this inexplicable act. Missing Ray? For him, I could only be sub-human.

So I am the last person who should have been selected for his next film. Not even in a dream. Why Ray8217;s actress in a yellow sari, and not a female death for Bergman? Yellow over black. Ray over Bergman. Quiet loquacity of my audition likethat of a TV presenter deserted by his autocue. My mind is full of catacombs. I told you. Analysing is a fecund business. And fecundity the only element synchronous with Ray.