A black and white image and a
colourful video related to Satyajit Ray resonated on social media as both public and police celebrated the 99th birth anniversary of the film maestro in the virtual world during the lockdown.
The image created by visual artist Aniket Mitra is an imaginary groupfie taken by singer Kishore Kumar at Rays birthday party, while the Kolkata Police shared a video, a popular number from a film by the Oscar winner, with the lyrics changed to advise people on the dos and donts of social distancing.
Both of them were posted on social media on May 2, Rays birth anniversary.
The black and white groupfie was a galaxy of stalwarts - actors including Utpal Dutt, Amjad Khan, Sanjeev Kumar, Rabi Ghosh, Tapen Chattopadhyay, Santosh Dutta; singer Kishore Kumar; musician Pt Ravi Shankar; Ray himself, his father Sukumar and wife Bijaya Ray. All of them had come in the life or the works of the filmmaker in one way or the other.
'Happy Birthday Manikda can be seen at the background of the image #Selfie of Century# Ray. Ray was fondly addressed as Manikda by people who knew him closely.
"My idea was to give the feel of an informal get together," Mitra said after posting the image on social media which was shared over 2.6 times.
Filmmaker Sujoy Ghosh tweeted "no idea who made this......but solid banaya."
Actor Prosenjit Chatterjee replied, "He is Aniket Mitra from Kolkata now settled in Mumbai.... Concept Artist....very talented."
Besides the image, a video in which Rays iconic characters Goopy the singer and Bagha the drummer asking people to stay indoors during the lockdown has also gone viral.
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The characters of Goopy and Bagha, essayed by Tapen Chattopadhyay and Rabi Ghosh respectively, appeared in three fantasy films directed or conceptualized by Ray.
The Kolkata Police posted a song sequence from the film 'Hirak Rajar Deshe' with changed lyrics on its Facebook page stating that this was their tribute to Satyajit Ray on his birthday.
"Our message in the song is: please do not go out of home. Coronavirus is still strong. If you still need to go out for any urgent work, wear mask. Fight this disease unitedly," a Kolkata Police official said.
The video had 5.7 lakh views and 2.9 lakh shares on the social media.
"I have seen the video several times. It retains the original sequence of the film 'Hirak Rajar Deshe', but blended smoothly with the changed lyrics. It is highly creative and non-preachy," Sumanto Majumder, a Ray enthusiast, said.
Disclaimer: No Business Standard Journalist was involved in creation of this content
