The Inner Eye: Satyajit Ray's portrait of the great artist Benode Behari Mukherjee

After completing his graduation in Economics from Presidency College in Kolkata, Satyajit Ray went to Shantiniketan in 1940, to study painting at the Visva-Bharati University founded by Rabindranath Tagore. It was at Shantiniketan that Ray met the eminent artist Benode Behari Mukherjee, who was a member of the faculty there. Benode Behari was severely myopic in one eye and blind in the other (he became completely blind a few years later, following an unsuccessful cataract operation), but despite his physical handicap, he was an artist par excellence, who continued to produce one remarkable work of art after another. Ray was deeply impacted and inspired by Benode Behari’s art, and many years later, as a tribute to his teacher, he made a documentary film on the latter’s life and works, aptly titled The Inner Eye.

17 December 2017