When Satyajit Ray almost had a panic attack during film shoot! – Times of India

The iconic character of Indir Thakrun, the very old grandmother, in ‘Pather Panchali’ was played by the outstanding octogenarian Chunibala Debi. During one shot she had to act dead. After the shot, Satyajit Ray called her but she didn’t respond. Ray panicked, thinking that she might have fainted, or worse, died. But to his relief Chunibala Debi opened her eyes after one more call, saying that she didn’t hear the ‘cut’. Sounds weird, nah!

‘Pather Panchali’ (A Song of the Little Road) marked Satyajit Ray’s debut as a director. This 1955 masterpiece from Ray is a social drama inspired by a famous novel of the same name by Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay. ‘Pather Panchali’ plots a young boy ‘Apu’ from a poor family and his daily life in a rural Indian village.

The film was produced by the then West Bengal government as the legendary filmmaker ran out of money after only shooting half of the movie. Halfway through filming, Ray ran out of funds. The Government of West Bengal loaned him the rest, allowing him to complete the film. This loan is listed in public records at the time as “roads improvement”, a nod to the film’s translated title.

As the story goes, on the first day of shooting, Satyajit Ray had never directed a scene, his cameraman Subrata Mitra had never photographed one and none of his child actors had even been screentested for their roles.