Birthday Special: KAL RAAT RAY ( SATYAJEET) MERE SAPNE MEIN AAYE THE .... By- Ali Peter John

This days, I don't know whether I'm more scared of living among the living during day or the people and the life that attack me in my dreams - Ali Peter John

Most of my dreams are sometimes so dangerous and weird that I don't talk about this because I wouldn't like to ruin their lives and there beautiful dreams.

But there are dreams which are also very sweet and pleasant and some which are just way out if this world.

I have just woken up after seeing a very long dream about Satyajit Ray (my dreams are rarely short,they just go on and on and I have to sometimes wake up in the middle of the night to 'kill' my dreams and when I try to go back to sleep, the dream continues exactly from where I had switched it off).

Now, where was the need for Satyajit Ray to come into a long dream I dreamt last night.

I saw an old and tall man sitting on the steps of my school which I had left 55 years ago. He was dressed in a silk dhoti and a flowing kurtha with a shawl covering himself.

The boys and girls in school had surrounded him and where treating him like a mad mad man.

I happened to passed by and saw him and found a very close similarity to the great Satyajit Ray.

I had seen Ray only once at the Rajkamal Studio where he and other well known filmmakers like Raj Kapoor, Tapan Sinha,Mrinal Sen and Manoj Kumar among others came to record there background music with the genius of sound recording, Mangesh Desai.

I never had the opportunity to talk to him but I had heard him speak at one of the functions at the FTII and I can still feel the sound of his voice and even remember the words of advice he gave to the students.

I made an effort to talk to him and he turned out to be Satyajit Ray himself. I couldn't believe it, but in my dreams he was Satyajit Ray who had only grown older and had a mop of grey hair.

I asked him why he was sitting there and he in the same voice that he had when he was alive, said he was very disturbed with the quality of films being made in India which he said where certainly not Indian film, but films from some other land.

He wanted to warn the filmmakers of today to change there ways if Indian cinema had to be saved.

'but who will listen to an old man like me now when most of my generation never tried to understand me?'.

He was still very better about people like Narges attacking him in Parliament or his depicting the poverty of India and he said,' I was only showing the reality of my country so that people would know where there country was standing and how it was high time they did something to change the country conditions in the country which was once known as the country where all great art and science had taken birth', he said as his rich voice now stared trembling.

He said he was very happy to see how Indian cinema was making progress in technology,but he said it was very important to find content then to make progress in any way and he continued to say that there was more revealing of the body then of the soul in our films today He had a heavy doubt of coughing and when he was better, he said he had great respect for Hindi film stars, specially Sanjeev Kumar, Amjad Khan, Shabana Azmi and Amitabh Bachchan
He told me how he had waited for several months for Amjad Khan to recover after his accident, because he couldn't think of making his first Hindi film, 'SHATRANJ KHILADI' without Amjad Khan who he said he believed was one of the most neglected talents of India He talked about his meeting with the young Amitabh Bachchan and was very impressed with not only his voice, but by his entire personality and how he had told Amitabh to be very careful while choosing his role and he would be a very great actor one day.

PS I remember Amitabh talking to me about his meeting with Ray and how he who was considered to have the richest voice was a great fan of Ray's voice and his lifestyle and especially his love for Indian classical music and western music. He had done the voiceover for Shatranj Khiladi and dreamt of working with him as an actor one day and how that dream never come true.

My dream continued and I could see the old Ray now looking like a sage or a hermit or like Moses ' the ten commandments' and was looking disturbed as he talked about a majority of director who didn't have there hearts and minds in the right places to make good films.

'They will have to change, this is the only message I have come to give the and all the actors working in films today.

I will be coming again and again till I'm satisfied with the quality of our Cinema. What I'm seeing today is nothing of what I and my generation of film makers had a dream or Indian cinema'

He got up from the steps where he was sitting with the children around him and started working with his white gown flowing on the road which was leading to the village where I used to buy my pencils ans rubbers and sometimes peppermints.

He asked me to buy him a book where he could draw sketches as he walked away.

I bought him the best sketch book and he walked away waving his hands to me and said,' I will come back, I will certainly come back again and again.

I'm a restless soul and I will not find rest till my cinema to which I had dedicated my life to is turned into a market place where art is sold for a few naya paise' and Indian cinema is made a laughing stock of the world

Do you still think this is a dream or just a figment of my imagination? You should have seen my dream about my meeting with Ray when I was dreaming my dream.