The Bengali cinema has gone through a downfall with the end of Satyajit Ray's era. He was in himself a whole industry of cinema. Satyajit Ray is one of the greatest masters of the filmmaker in Indian cinema. He made his films in Bengali that is the language spoken in the eastern part of India that is West Bengal. But we find that his films are appreciated and are of universal interest. The films he made were based on the topics that combine to make and define the human race as such- they are the relationships in men, and women, emotions, struggle, conflict, joys and sorrows, and his films show his great handling of the situations that come in a man's life and as his observations are really splendid in matters of dealing the complications in one's life. His handling of characters and presenting them as in the movie and also his potrusion of the characters through his actors are worth mentioning.

Ray was born in 1921 in Calcutta in a distinguished family of Bengal. His grandfather Upendra Kishore Ray was a scientist, amateur astronomer, illustrator, musician, writer of children's stories and a publisher! His father Sukumar Ray was a brilliant writer and his mother an exceptional singer. After graduating from Calcutta's Presidency College, Ray went to Shantiniketan, the open air university founded by Rabindranath Tagore. There Ray read widely, observed nature, and became interested in graphic design while studying fine art.

Ray returned to Calcutta in 1943 and worked with a British owned advertising agency, D.J. Keymer as a visualiser. Pather Panchali was three years in the making - years of unceasing finance struggle. The film, the first in the Apu trilogy views life in a village in Bengal through the eyes of two young children of an impoverished Brahmin poet-priest - Apu and Durga. In the film Ray turns seemingly mundane events into momentous experience as Apu and Durga spell bound by an approaching train or the sequence of Durga dancing in the rain while Apu watches admiringly. The use of music when the father is told of Durga's death is an unforgettable scene in the history of Indian cinema. The film won a special prize at Cannes for the 'Best Human Document' and even had a run of 13 weeks in Calcutta. The two following films Aparajito (1956) and Apur Sansar (1959) completing the Apu trilogy following Apu into adulthood and marriage while having their moments and in spite of much tighter construction lacked the simplicity and poetic quality of Pather Panchali. But still the trilogy as a whole has the rhythm and flow of life and Aparajito won the 'Lionne d'Ore' at Venice in a jury presided by Rene Clair.

Though a profilic period of interesting filmmaking followed for Ray (Jalsagar (1958), Devi (1960), Teen Kanya (1961), Abhijan (1962), Kanchenjunga (1962) - his first film in colour, Mahanagar (1963)) perhaps his next masterpiece and most perfectly crafted film was Charulata (1964). Set in the Calcutta of 1879, the period of the Bengal Renaissance, the period is meticulously created - the costumes, the heavy Victorian furniture, the wallpaper, the typography of Charu's husband's journal. The opening sequence establishing Charu's boredom and loneliness as she wanders aimlessly in the house has just one line of dialogue in seven minutes but is so beautifully handled that dialogue is never missed. The music sets the tone of the film with reamarkable use of musical motifs and the film is carried by a brilliant performance by Madhabi Mukherjee in the title role.

Ray worked in no fixed genre unlike many of his contemporaries - a song and dance children's fantasy film - Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne (1969), Pratiwandi (1970), Seemabaddha (1974) and Jana Aranya (1975) - his modern urban trilogy with the common thematic thread - corruption uniting the three films, Detective crime fiction - Sonar Kella (1974), Jai Baba Felunath (1978) and Historicals - Shatranj ke Khiladi (1977) his first film in Hindi. His sequential work on feluda deserves mention as he had written and made films on his own made fictional character of feluda who is a detective of his imagination. In the 1980s Ray had to stop making films for close to five years due to ill-health but late in 1988 his doctors permitted him to work provided he restricted himself to indoor studio shooting.

Of his last films perhaps the only one which saw him return to form somewhat was in fact his last film, Agantuk (1991). The film deals with a long lost uncle who unexpectedly lands up and disturbs the life of a young couple. They suspect his claim to being the wife's uncle because they think he is after their ancestral property while their son is fascinated with his adventures and travels. But at the end the uncle played by Utpal Dutta leaves and goes away giving all the property to this couple. Finally in 1992, Satyajit Ray received the honorary Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement. He also made a film in hindi named "Shatranj ke Khiladi" which also deals with the complications in characters when we find that kings of different states are so addicted to the game of chess that they are not aware that their kingdoms are being usurped by the british. Through this Ray wanted to show that passion for something can be good but madness and addiction to something can be dangerous.

He did never make an art movie rather it was always a commercial success. He did everything to make a movie, he was the script writer, the music director, the director, the graphics designer, the filmmaker in total. His imagination was splendid and varied and he always had a far sightedness in his output. What he thought then happens today and can be applied in any field even today. Today the Bengali directors who have received acclamation for their movies like Rituparno Ghosh, Aparna Sen and goutam Ghosh still think and always recall the works of Satyajit Ray and he will always be remembered.

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