Satyajit Ray's notebooks: Preludes of films

Ashish Anand, CEO and MD of DAG, has had an interest in archival material, which has persisted over decades, resulting in a personal collection of such items. When Anand started collecting art, he ensured that the collections included all associated archival materials, such as letters, photographs and clothes.

The DAG Archive has two of filmmaker Satyajit Ray’s handwritten notebooks containing the original scripts for Ghare Baire (1984) and Samapti from the anthology Teen Kanya (1961)—both cinematic adaptations of literary works by Tagore.

Ray’s notebooks, in which he jotted down the minutest of details about the films he made, have attracted much attention over the years. The red books, known in Bengali as ‘kheror khata’, were a ready reckoner of sorts for his films, for which he would scout for locations, write dialogues and lyrics, compose music, and design costumes and sets.