After being methodically restored over six years, filmmaker Satyajit Ray’s 1970 film Aranyer Din Ratri (Days and Nights in the Forest) was screened in the Cannes Classic section at the ongoing Cannes Film Festival. The film starred Soumitra Chatterjee, Subhendu Chatterjee, Samit Bhanja, Rabi Ghosh, Sharmila Tagore, Kaberi Bose, Simi Garewal and Aparna Sen. Actors Sharmila Tagore and Simi Garewal attended the event, which was hosted by the celebrated filmmaker Wes Anderson. The restoration and screening of the film also brought back the old memories for the actors. Speaking about the film, Sharmila recalled shooting for the film in extreme conditions.
Sharmila Tagore was shooting for Rajesh Khanna’ Aaradhna when she received a call from Satyajit Ray. The veteran actor recalled her conversation with him and told The Hollywood Reporter India, “He said, ”Will you work in my film? I need you for one month… in month of May’. Without thinking I said yes. Then when I put the phone down, I said, ‘Oh God, I am committed to Shakti Samanta because he was doing Meri Sapno Ki Rani that exact May.”
She added, “Rajesh Khanna was very busy because he had won a talent contest and was indebted to 12 producers. So he had to give dates to everybody and they were all making a film. His dates were very precious. I said, ‘Shakti ji, I just have to do this film. Somehow I negotiated and managed to come to Satyajit Ray and then went back to the other film.”
Sharmila Tagore, who had marked her acting debut with Satyajit Ray’s Apur Sansar (The World of Apu), didn’t want to take the risk of saying no to the filmmaker. “I always treated him with a little bit of awe, respect, like you did to your father”, said the actress.
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In the same conversation, the 80-year-old screen legend recalled, “When we were shooting for Aranyer Din Ratri, we were staying in different places because there was paucity of space. Simi (Garewal) and Kaberi (Bose) stayed in a sort of next-door village in a plush forest bungalow. Satyajit Ray with Soumitra Chatterjee and other crew members stayed in another place. And Samit Bhanja, Subhendu Chatterjee, Rabi Ghosh and I stayed in another place.”
“I had the chowkidar’s room and I had a water cooler. In dry weather, it worked very well. These guys were in a shed with tin roof. So they would all joke about themselves and say ‘I am Rabi roast, Subhendu would say I am sauteed Subhendu’ because it used to be so hot. You cannot imagine how hot it was. We could only work from 5:30 AM to 9:00 AM and then again from 3:00 PM to 6:00 PM. Rest of the time, we just bonded and became good friends. It was really a tough location.”
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Sharing the reason behind the filmmaker choosing the particular month of May for his shoot, Sharmila said, “He wanted that time because the trees were leafless. He wanted a particular look and it was only possible in May because then the rains came soon after and before that it was all leafy and lush.”
Aranyer Din Ratri is a Bengali-language adventure drama film based on the novel of the same name by Sunil Gangopadhyay. The film was primarily shot in the Palamu region of Jharkhand. Palamu is one of the twenty four districts of Jharkhand and the temperature crosses 44 degrees Celsius during summer, making it an extremely tough location to work in.
