Once Upon A Cinema | The magical worlds of Satyajit Ray’s famous Kheror Khata-Opinion News , Firstpost

Once Upon a Cinema is a new series which will illuminate the dark, unexplored crevices of Indian cinema. In it, the writer will showcase stories and faces long forgotten, share uncommon perspectives about stars and filmmakers, and recount tales that have never been told.

Satyajit Ray’s father Sukumar Ray was no less a cult figure than his son. A satirist and humorist of the highest order, he would often cook up lines which would call to mind the Marx Brothers, or the dry humour dished out by the likes of Ricky Gervais. Satyajit was all of 2 years when Sukumar passed away. One of the things that he inherited from his father was an old red notebook referred to as Kheror Khata, which contained copious scribblings, notes and illustrations. It had seven different titles, listed on the first page: Faltu Khata (The Unnecessary Notebook), Hijibiji Khata (The Nonsense Notebook), Uro Khata (The Fanciful Notebook), Khoshra Khata (The Notebook for Drafts), Emni Khata (The Just-like-that Notebook), Baje Khata (The Wasted Notebook), and Jabeda Khata (The Collections Notebook).

Among other things, the Khata includes the agenda for a meeting of the “Monday Club”, formed by Sukumar Ray:
“1. Secretary to present his annual misstatements.
2. Jiban Babu to raise a protest: “Is this a report? If so, why not?”
3. Sukumar Babu to move that the secretary be dismissed (storm of protests, chorus led by Habul Babu)
4. (Singing in chorus) God save the secretary!”

This kind of irreverent caricature shaped a young boy’s worldview. The only way for Satyajit to know his father was through his literary work, his illustrations and the aforementioned Kheror Khata. But what was this Kheror Khata, and why is it so central to Ray’s filmmaking?

The word khero is derived from kherua, which refers to a particular kind of red cloth. Businessmen and traders in the east and certain parts of northern India have traditionally used a very specific kind of thick notebook for maintaining accounts, which is bound in this red cloth. In rudimentary Hindi, it is called bahi-khata and in Bengal/ Calcutta, it acquired the colloquial name Kheror Khata. Since these books were spacious and durable, a Bengali middle class obsessed with writing, literature and creative pursuits would make use of them to record their penmanship. The Ray family in particular, seemed to employ it quite often. While Sukumar Ray used it to jot down his odd preoccupations, his cousin litterateur Lila Majumdar wrote a book for children called Kheror Khata, where the term became synonymous with nostalgia.

The year was 1956. Pather Panchali had released and been a success. Ray was mulling over a sequel, based on Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay’s follow-up to Pather Panchali, entitled Aparajito. The unvanquished. He writes in his book My Years with Apu:

“The experience after the first film told me that it would be better to have a proper script ready. With that in view, I bought a fat red cloth-bound book, the kind that is normally used to keep accounts, a practice going back several hundred years. They are called ‘kheror khata’ and they are meant to last.”

This notebook became an extension of Ray’s mind, so to speak. It contained elaborate notes, character sketches, draft screenplays, dialogues, storyboards, and costume drawings. It is well-known that sketching, drawing and designing were among Ray’s immense talents. His background as a visualizer and illustrator at an advertising agency held him in good stead throughout his filmmaking career. From his posters to the fonts of credit titles, the graphic illustrator in him often came to the fore. Naturally, this extended to costume design, especially in period films and fantasies. And all of it found glorious expression in his notebook, his kheror khata.

Charulata’s story was set in the 1870s, and Ray based his designs of the sarees and frilled blouses on surviving photographs and books from Victorian era Calcutta. In addition to Charu herself, clothes worn by her husband Bhupati and the hero Amal were all crafted by Satyajit ray on the pages of his notebook.

In a similar vein, for Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne, Ray had filled not one but two such books. The first had all illustrations and details of the film till the very end, while the second book was dedicated only for the legendary “Dance of the ghosts” or Bhooter naach. The first page had music notations, followed by sketches with description of ghosts of different categories. The ghosts were divided by class and socio-economic divide. The primary class consisted of kings from various periods in history. There was a ghost from the ancient, mythological era, one from Buddhist period, one from the Mughal era, one from the Kushan period and son on. The following page had illustrations of ghosts from the class of commoners, which included one from the Santhal tribe, a Baul, a peasant, a Bihari doorman, a Muslim person, and an enforcer/ lathiyal.

Many more classes and categories follow, and then a frame-by-frame-by-frame description of how the dance will progress. Detailed notes spelled out each movement and the entire sequence, along with details of the instruments that are heard throughout the most elaborate, bizarre and painstakingly detailed dance number in history.

Over the years, the notebooks piled up. During an interview with BBC Hindi, writer Javed Siddiqui reminisced about Ray writing the script for Shatranj Ke Khilari in his bahi khata. In near-perfect Bengali, Javed mimicked Ray’s holler as soon as he entered the studio: “Amar khata dao!” (Pass me my khata!) In the three decades since Ray’s demise, his kheror khata has passed to the realm of legends and many a fan has wished to be able to glance at it just once in their lifetime.

Last year, as Satyajit Ray stepped into his 100^th year, Centre for New Media in collaboration with his son Sandeep Ray, Mrinal Sen’s son Kunal Sen and Purnima Dutta, has been able to reproduce parts of his two notebooks for Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne, on the cyberspace. The website exploreray.org features elaborate scans of Ray’s timeless Kheror Khata, a rare insight into one of the most brilliant creative minds this country has ever produced.

 Amborish is a National Film Award winning writer, biographer and film historian. 

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