Customer Reviews

Childhood Days- A Memoir

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This is Ray's autobiography ,translated by his wife Bijoya Ray.
Ray paints his childhood days (from very little age till when he crossed 16 years) with such minute details and interesting incidents that one has to finish this book in one go.

His passion for cinema(Ray is a world-known director)is grown in these earlier years thanks to those Hollywood movies coming regularly to Calcutta at that time.
One can get the live sights and sounds and life of Calcutta in this book during the time period of 1926-1936.

This is a great work.

Graceful and quick as a read - this is an essential read for fans of Satyajit Ray.

Translated by Ray's wife, CHILDHOOD DAYS was first published in the Bengali children's magazine "Sandesh," and is primarily geared towards a young audience.

But Ray sheds light upon his own very fascinating, rather bohemian upbringing, and after reading this one will easily spot the many strands of disguised autobiography surfacing in many of Ray's films.

CHILDHOOD DAYS is expanded or augmented with additional writings on the making of "Pather Panchali," and also "Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne," which was his first children's film - and this section of the book is of particular interest as well. "Goopy" has paradoxically become one of Ray's most popular films in India, and is a major entry in his overall body of work, in spite of being very rarely screened internationally. This portion of the book is a fairly direct address to kids who would have loved this magical and mesmerizing film, but also serves to pique the curiosity of non-Indian film aficionados of all ages (I was only able to locate a copy of the film after extensive searching).

In any case, CHILDHOOD DAYS manages to serve as several things - foremost a shimmering, smart bit of writing for young audiences, and simultaneously, a fascinating yet unpretentious creative autobiography.

I have biases towards Ray's films and writing, but I still recommend.

-David Alston