Bijoya Ray

Bijoya Ray (Bengali pronunciation: [Bijôea Rae]; October 1917 – 2 June 2015) was the wife of the Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray. Their son Sandip Ray is also a film director. Bijoya and Satyajit were first cousins. After a long courtship, they were married in 1949. Bijoya Ray acted and sang playback song in a Bengali movie called Shesh Raksha in 1944 and also acted in the documentary Gaach (The Tree) by Catherine Berge in 1998. She died in Kolkata on 2 June 2015, aged 94, after suffering from acute pneumonia.

Early life and education

Bijoya Ray was born as Bijoya Das to Charu Chandra Das, a barrister and Madhuri Devi, younger sister of nationalist leader 'Deshbandhu' C R Das's wife Basanti Devi. She was the youngest of four daughters. One of her elder siblings Sati Devi was well known singer and musical exponent who worked with Uday Shankar in Almora and at Prithvi Theatre in Bombay and her daughter Ruma Guha Thakurta is a well-known personality in music and acting world who was formerly married to the legendary singer Kishore Kumar. She had a versatile acting talent although she didn't work in many films.

Bijoya grew up in Patna and was educated in a convent. She had a gifted voice and her father wanted to send her to Paris to be trained in soprano and western classical music. In 1931, when she was thirteen her father died and she along with her mother and sisters had to come to Calcutta to her paternal uncle Prasant Das's house. It was here that she met her first cousin Satyajit. They were drawn to each other very soon and their common interests were Film and western classical music. She graduated from the Jogamaya Devi College, an affiliated undergraduate women's college of the historic University of Calcutta, in Kolkata. After graduating, she worked as a clerk in a government office, she went to Bombay to start a film career and was eventually unsuccessful.

Career

She worked in a few films without success or satisfaction. In 1949 she married Satyajit Ray and got settled. Their only son Sandip was born in 1953. Bijoya Ray remained a constant inspiration and influence in Ray's life. After her husband's death in 1992, she lived in Calcutta with her son Sandip, daughter-in-law Lalita and grandson Saurodip. She wrote an autobiography "Amader kotha (আমাদের কথা ISBN 81-7756-687-3)" which is published by Ananda Publishers. She died on 2 June 2015 aged 94 after suffering from Pneumonia.

Filmography

• Shesh Raksha (1944)
• Mashaal (1950)
• Rajani