Eavesdropping on Satyajit Ray

In The Argumentative Indian, Amartya Sen invokes Ray to propagate his view that it is possible - indeed desirable - to completely retain 'indian-ness' while remaining open to other cultural influences. He provides an insight into Satyajit Ray's approach and thoughts; speaking of the problem of making films that contain nuances of language and so on that the foreigner may find hard to grasp, he says:

Such difficulties and barriers cannot be avoided. Ray did not want to aim his movies at a foreign audience, and Ray fans abroad who rush to see his films know that they are, in a sense, eavesdropping. I believe that this relationship of the creator and the eavesdropper is by now very well established among the millions of Ray fans across the world. There is no exception that his films are anything other than the work of an Indian - and a Bengali - director made for a local audience, and the attempt to understand what is going on is a decision to engage in a self-consciously 'receptive' activity.

In this sense Ray has triumphed - on his own terms - and this vindication, despite all the barriers, tells us something about possible communication and understanding across cultural boundaries. It may be hard, but it can be done, and the eagerness with which viewers with much experience of Western cinema flock to see Ray's films (despite the occasional obscurities of a presentation originally tailored for an entirely different audience) indicates what is possible when there is a willingness to go beyond the bounds of one's own culture.

Sen then quotes Ray:

There is no reason why we should not cash in on the foreigners' curiosity about the Orient. But this not mean pandering to their love of the false-exotic. A great many notions about our country and our people have to be dispelled, even though it may be easier and - from a film point of view - more paying to sustain the existing myths than to demolish them.

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