THE huge funeral pro-‘ cession of Satyajit Ray held after his death in 1993 could only be compared in scale with the historic procession for another Bengali artist : Rabindranath Tagore. After I had commented on this parallel, one of my friends reminded me of one more relevant detail: Satyajit Ray had begun his documentary on Rabindranath with just that historic scene.

Similarities between these two Bengali masters of different times and media, however, do not begin with this final procession. There are other areas of resemblances between them. For both, it was an irony that their greatness was first discovered and appreciated in the West rather than in their own homeland. It was only after Rabindranath had received the Nobel Prize that the Bengali literary community realized that they had such a great poet in their midst. Rabindranath's speech, given at a reception held in his honour by the Bengali literary elite after the Nobel award, emphatically refers on. to that embarrassing reality. Equally, with the current outburst of eulogy and appreciation of. Satyajit Ray. we are conveniently forgetting a time when, in contrast to Pother Panchali's great success at the Cannes Festival, the local authorities dismissed the film as "rather* dull and slow-moving". Even a great Bengali writer like Kamoi Kumar Majumdar did not find anything worth mentioning In the film with the exception of a single nice shot” We should not also forget the fact that even before Pother PanchaU was completed, the Museum of

Mpdern Art invited the'film to a special exhibition in. New York. Moreover, the Museum made a special request to the West Bengal Government to assist in the completion of the film. Bidhan C Roy. the then Chief Minister of West Bengal, finally supported the project, but only after mistakenly labelling the film as a documentary and advising the director to change the last scene by having the family Join a community development project" instead of simply leaving the village.

Rabindranath was in every respect a Renaissance mind, not only in literature, but in his powerful mastery of painting, music and" drama as well. But it is commonly believed that the age of ihe Renaissance man is over now. The arts and the media have evolved Into such complex and diverse forms that it is no longer possible for a single person to excel in every, field. So It is all the more striking when artists such as Rabindranath and Ray actively and deftly exhibit their Renaissance temperament and talents.

Perhaps, one can readily identity two types of great mind* in history The first is the type to play a revolutionary role either by evoking ideas and Ideal* or by bringing a radical change in their respective art form. But there Is another kind of equally great artists who. without necessarily trying to radicalize society or revolu tlonize their own art-form.

achieve in their work an embodiment of the character and culmination of the entire society. In this case, the artist becomes the cultural symbol of their society. This society, with all its vices and virtues, its potentials and limitations, is manifested through the artist's work. Rabindranath Tagore and Satyajit Ray both belong to this latter category. "Rabindranath is an ocean, where water from all sources, fountains, rivers and clouds come together and lose their own separate entities in the greater whole." Rabindranath never hesitated to borrow from any cultural source, be it Baul or Vedanta. He synthesized these sources into a new and Integrated cultural whole. Uke Rabindranath. Ray also explored and exploited the potentials of Bengali literature and culture, from Rabindranath's world vision to Bibhutl Bhusan's rural Bengal, and gave them a cinematic synthesis.

The history of the Tagore and Ray families Is a micro cosip of the history of the Calcutta-based Bengali middle class intelligentsia. Ih contrast to the rise of ultranationalism and Hindi) revivalism in greater Bengal, a reformist movement called Brahma Samql was born in the rank* of the Intelligentsia A new ener getic. liberal and creative spirit sprang from this com munlty Openness to all religions and culture* was the

crucial characteristic that enabled them to become leaders of .the Bengal Renaissance, unfortunately, this openness also led the leaders of the new intelligentsia to subscribe to a less admirable trait: the Victorian sensibility and its prudish aspects. So it was not a matter of mere coincidence that both Rabindranath and Ray came from the Brahmo Samaj families with all all the virtues of the Enlightenment and the vices of Victorianism combined. Despite their individual genius, one cannot discount the decisive influence of this Brahmo background on their mental makeup.

To me. the most striking commonness between Ray and Rabindranath lies in their broader world vision. Neither of them suffered from the narrow binds of nationalism. Interestingly enough, when a fellow Bengali filmmaker Rltwik Ghatak died, Satyajit Ray, in his condolence message. said. Rltwik was a greater Bengali than 1." I don't think Ray was just trying to be modest here. Rather this was a compliment he did not want to reserve for himself This temperamental distance from Bengali nationalist tendencies was fundamental to Rabind ranath s world view as well

The Irony of history Is that although Rabindranath never fell prey to the temptations oi nationalism, after his deatli lie was made into Its ultimate symbol In certain quarters

Hopefully. Satyajit Ray will not fall prey to the same fate. In this regard. Ray may have one important advantage over Rabindranath. Ray did not make the mistake of leaving behind an institution after his death as did Rabindranath. It was the very institution that Rabindranath founded that, after his death, was instrumental In defining him in narrower terms and reducing his legacy to a hollow pillar of middleclass culture. It was quite likely that Ray learned a lesson from this. In fact. Ray studied at Santiniketan for several years as a result of his family pressure. But before he could complete his degree, he had left. As he recalled later on, he did not like the atmosphere there. He hated the "sign song" voice of the Santiniketan subculture. Many years later. Satyajit Ray stamped his protest against the orthodoxy of Santlniketan-led idolization of Rabindranath by making one of Rabindranath's Western melodies even more Western In one of his own film-songs.

Let me conclude with an interesting detail from Andrew Robinsons book on Satyqjlt Ray. "The Inner Eye During a visit with Ray in Calcutta, Robinson realized that unlike other Bengali homes Satyajit Ray s home had no portrait of Rabindranath Tagore hanging from its walls When Rabinson asked Ray about this absence Ray simply said, "Such a cliche!" In the near future, we should not be surprised to see that the portrait of Ray in ev ery Bengali middle class household has become "Such a cliche"