Foreword by Jean-Claude Carrière
1. Since this kind of film required a large budget, it would have been necessary to cast stars, as they would bring in the distribution.
Introduction by Andrew Robinson
1. See p. 50.
2. Interview with V.S. Naipaul in 1987, quoted in Andrew Robinson, Satyajit Ray: The Inner Eye, 2nd edn, London: I.B. Tauris, 2004, p. 246.
3. Rajbans Khanna, ‘Ray’s Wajid Ali Shah’, the Illustrated Weekly of India, Bombay, 22 October 1978, p. 49.
4. See p. 47.
5. Satyajit Ray, ‘My Wajid Ali Shah is not “Effete and Effeminate”!’, the Illustrated Weekly of India, Bombay, 31 December 1978, p. 50.
6. Andrew Robinson, Satyajit Ray: The Inner Eye, 2nd edn, London: I.B. Tauris, 2004, p. 242.
7. Andrew Robinson, Satyajit Ray: The Inner Eye, 2nd edn, London: I.B. Tauris, 2004, p. 242–3.
8. James Dalhousie, Private Letters of the Marquess of Dalhousie, edited by J.G.A. Baird, Edinburgh: William Blackwood, 1910, p. 169.
9. See p. 55.
10. Andrew Robinson, Satyajit Ray: The Inner Eye, 2nd edn, London: I.B. Tauris, 2004, p. 245.
11. Marie Seton, Satyajit Ray: Portrait of a Director, 2nd edn, London: Dobson, 1978, p. 165.
12. Andrew Robinson, Satyajit Ray: The Inner Eye, 2nd edn, London: I.B. Tauris, 2004, p. 250.
13. See p. 135.
14. Rajbans Khanna, ‘Ray’s Wajid Ali Shah’, the Illustrated Weekly of India, Bombay, 22 October 1978, p. 53.
15. Tim Radford, ‘A Kingdom in Pawn’, Guardian, London, 18 January 1979.
16. Vincent Canby, ‘Ray Satirizes Indian Nobility’, the New York Times, New York, 17 May 1978.
17. Andrew Robinson, Satyajit Ray: The Inner Eye, 2nd edn, London: I.B. Tauris, 2004, p. 251.
18. Andrew Robinson, Satyajit Ray: The Inner Eye, 2nd edn, London: I.B. Tauris, 2004, p. 240.
3. Shatranj Ke Khilari: The Beginnings
1. Jana Aranya (The Middle Man).
2. The Poster in History by Max Gallo.
3. Power outages in a locality.
4. Sanjeev Kumar, the actor Ray wanted to cast for the role of Mirza, one of the chess players.
5. Rajkamal Studios, Bombay.
6. Re-recording: the combining of many soundtracks in the final mix.
7. Bansi Chandragupta, one of the finest art directors in Indian cinema.
8. A prominent lecture series at Harvard which Ray was asked to deliver that year.
4. Research and Scheduling
1. A Hindi writer who put us in touch with Amritlal Nagar. His wife, Mannu Bhandari, also a writer, wrote the story on which my film Rajnigandha was based.
2. A famous writer based in Lucknow.
3. Documentary about Balasaraswati, a famous Bharatanatyam dancer.
4. Amritlal Nagar.
5. Kaifi Azmi, well-known Urdu writer and poet, and also the father of Shabana Azmi, the actress who played the wife of Mirza in the film.
6. Until now Ray’s most expensive film had cost 10 lakh rupees. My first film cost 7 lakh rupees.
7. Her first film, Rajnigandha, was also my first.
8. Laboratory in Chennai where Ray processed all his films.
5. Casting
1. Considered to be the ‘father of English theatre in Delhi’, Barry John played Fayrer, the resident surgeon, in the film.
2. Smuggled equipment was being checked by the government, hence much of it had become unavailable.
3. Abdul Halim Sharar’s Guzeshta Lucknow, translated as Lucknow: The Last Phase of an Oriental Culture.
4. Ex-wife of actor Saeed Jaffrey. She starred in many Merchant-Ivory films.
5. Shama Zaidi translated Ray’s original English dialogues into Hindi/Urdu and also designed the costumes for Shatranj Ke Khilari. She later went on to become a scriptwriter for many ‘new wave’ Hindi films.
6. Rahas or ras: a theatrical representation of the dances of Krishna and the gopis.
7. Close relatives of the Ray family, with whom he often stayed.
8. The most renowned exponent of the classical Indian dance form called Kathak. He choreographed the dances and also sang one of the songs in the film.
9. The National Museum in New Delhi.
10. The son of Premchand, himself a prominent Hindi writer.
11. A major film distributor.
12. India’s largest production, distribution and exhibition company at the time.
6. Final Preparations
1. Indian Motion Picture Producers’ Association.
2. About the story rights.
3. Lucknow Museum.
4. A renowned Hindi poet.
5. Anil Choudhury, the production manager.
6. Director of the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Bombay. He commissioned the documentary on Balasaraswati that Ray had been working on.
7. Mangesh Desai, a wizard at re-recording and mixing at Rajkamal Studios. Ray would not let anyone else do the sound-mixing of his films.
8. General Officer Commanding: an army general in charge of a command area.
9. J.F.R. Jacob
10. Ram Mohan: one of India’s pioneering and leading animation artists. He worked on the film.
11. A Bollywood star at the time.
12. A young actress whose career was just taking off then. She ended up playing the role of Nafeesa.
13. Bourne & Shepherd (B & S): the second oldest photo studio in the world, based in Calcutta.
14. Feudal landholders whom the British co-opted after 1857.
15. A friend, who was an officer at the Indian embassy in London. She was awarded the Padma Shri by the Government of India. She was the ‘godmother’ of all film-makers, writers and other cultural pros who were looking for connections in England. A wonderfully helpful and well-loved woman.
16. Translation and costumes.
17. Inder: Inder Raj Anand, writer/director. Gulzar: well-known writer, director, lyricist and poet.
18. Subrata Mitra, the cameraman who shot Ray’s first film as well as all subsequent films until Nayak (1966).
19. Eventually, he did not go to Teheran, only to London.
20. British actor.
21. Internationally famous British actor.
22. British writer, known for her biographies of Ray and Eisenstein.
23. Ray is referring to Manju Raj Saraogi, who fabricated the costumes for the film.
24. Andrew Mollo, an expert on military costumes. He drew the sketches for the film’s costumes.
25. Aide of General Outram, played by Tom Alter.
26. Zehra Tyabji, the film’s graphic designer.
27. Javed Siddiqui, who translated the dialogues with Shama Zaidi. It was his first film job. He went on to become a highly successful Bollywood writer.
28. A famous actress from India’s silent movie era who played the role of the king’s mother.
29. Ashok Bose, the associate art director.
30. Soumendu Roy, the cameraman.
7. Filming
1. There was no second-unit work.
2. Soumendu Roy. Roy is an English corruption of ‘Rai’, which was his real name, as was Ray’s.
3. Narinder Singh, the sound director.
4. Of Dossani Films, the distributor for the territory of Bengal.
8. Post-production
1. Bhanu Ghosh.
2. Mr Bels, a foreign diplomat cast as a British officer in the marching scene.
3. Uma da Cunha, liaison officer and publicist.
4. Sandip Ray’s pet name.
5. Nemai Ghosh, stills photographer.
6. Sumantra Ghosal, son of the Ghosals, now a well-known ad film-maker.
7. Sanjeev Kumar’s nickname.
8. Amitabh Bachchan narrated the film’s animation sequence that depicted the relationship between the East India Company and the nawabs of Awadh. Ray had told me he was keen to have Amitabh do the narration, so I requested Tinnu to ask the superstar. Amitabh and he had been friends since K.A. Abbas’s Saat Hindustani, Amitabh’s first film. When Amitabh graciously agreed to narrate the sequence, I became anxious since I thought he might ask for an exorbitant amount, which would make a dent on our already stretched budget. But Amitabh told Tinnu that if I ever mentioned paying him again, he would not do the work. I was enormously relieved but wanted to give the actor a gift as a token of my deep appreciation. Once the recordings were done, Tinnu suggested the perfect gift: the latest Kodak projector with a built-in pull-out screen. Amitabh was fond of making Super-8mm films. When I sent it to him, he wrote me this thank you note: ‘Thanks for the marvellous gift! You’re not getting it back even if Manik-da rejects the commentary. Wishing the “Chess Players” all success.’
9. Anil Sud, CEO of His Master’s Voice (HMV).
10. Does not refer to me but rather to those ones who prepared the censor script.
11. A cinema hall in Calcutta.
12. A reference to sending Shatranj Ke Khilari to the London Film Festival, for which government permission was required.
13. People were once again trying to create a rift between Manik-da and me by insinuating that I was against sending my own film to the London Film Festival.
14. The producer–director who made Amitabh Bachchan an all-time superstar with his film Zanjeer. He did finally distribute Shatranj Ke Khilari in the Delhi–UP territory.
15. Vinod Khanna, a superstar in his time, who briefly rivalled Amitabh Bachchan’s popularity.
16. A prominent producer and distributor of Hindi cinema. He bought the film for the Bombay territory and subsequently refused to release it.
17. Hrishikesh Mukherjee, a famous Hindi film director.
18. Contemporary Films, a prominent distributor of art films in the UK.
19. Connoisseur Films, also a prominent distributor of art films. They distributed our film in the UK.
20. Distributors in Ireland and the UK.
21. Dhananjaya Kumar, the distributor in the US.
22. Bikram Singh, the doyen of film critics in India.
23. Anil Dharker, a prominent film critic.
24. He played the son of the dying lawyer from whom the chess players borrow a chess set.
25. Berlin, Cannes and Venice are the three top competitive film festivals and only accept those films that have not yet been shown at any other festival in the world. The film was originally shown at the London Film Festival; despite that, Berlin wanted and accepted it in the competitive section.
26. That the first distributors had all backed out, saying the film was not commercially viable.
27. Wishful thinking on my part that an arthouse film would be a mainstream hit, and then mainstream backers might back arthouse cinema.
9. The Release and After
1. Abbreviation for Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh.
2. Exemption from entertainment tax on film tickets.
3. The government had to approve all export contracts to ensure they were not being undervalued and the difference stashed abroad.
4. Indian Motion Pictures Export Corporation, one of the ubiquitous government bodies controlling Indian films.
5. David Robinson and Patrick Gibbs, British film critics.
6. The screening was to be exempted from entertainment tax in the state.
7. A prominent film director and leading figure of the art cinema movement in India.
8. I went on to make Gandhi.
9. The original went missing.
10. Pablo Bartholomew, now a famous photojournalist. Shatranj Ke Khilari was his first film job.
11. A major film weekly of India.
12. Joint Chief Controller of Imports and Exports: During our ‘socialist’ days we had to register all import/export contracts with this body.
13. N.V.K. Murthy, general manager of the Film Finance Corporation, a government body responsible for financing ‘art’ cinema.
14. Chief technician at Gemini Colour Laboratories.
15. Shashi Kapoor, actor–producer who produced a film that is set in the same period as Shatranj Ke Khilari called Junoon (1978), directed by Shyam Benegal.
16. The Bengal distributors.
17. A well-known film and television festival.
18. The cinema on Oxford Street where the film ended up running for nearly a year.
19. Richard Attenborough.
20. B.K. Karanjia, editor of Screen magazine, previously editor of Fanfare magazine.
21. Francis Wacziarg, a French businessman settled in India.
22. A documentary film project by Ray.
23. Federal Republic of Germany.
24. The film’s first distributors in the US and in Canada.
25. Mainstream business people.
26. Selznick was a perfectionist and wanted total control over all his films, sending endless memos to his directors, actors and crew to get them to follow his wishes.
27. In Mahakasher Doot, Professor Shonku—a fictional Bengali scientist created by Satyajit Ray in a series of science-fiction books—tries to prove that mankind has prospered with the help of an alien civilization that comes to Earth every 5,000 years to teach mankind something new.
28. Hirak Rajar Deshe (The Kingdom of Diamonds, 1980), a film Satyajit Ray was working on at the time.
29. Ray’s film The Home and the World (1984).
30. Sadgati (Deliverance, 1981), Ray’s film based on a story by Munshi Premchand, the writer of Shatranj Ke Khilari.
31. A short novel by Bengali writer Mahasweta Devi. Ray and I had agreed to adapt Beej for a film.
32. A well-known Hindi literary figure. At the time, Kamleshwar was also the additional director general of Doordarshan, India’s national TV channel.
33. Katha, a film produced by me and directed by Sai Paranjpye. It won the National Award for Best Hindi Film.
34. After his two heart attacks.
35. Gopa Ghoshal, Mrs Ray’s niece. Ray sometimes stayed with her family.
36. Cinémathèque Française. It has the world’s most extensive film archives.
37. A Dutch project involving a dozen international directors to make a dozen short films.