Bimal Roy - A Daughter Remembers

1. Bimal Roy - A Daughter Remembers There is very little information available on my father, Bimal Roy. According to the Screen Yearbook 1956, my father's date of birth is 12 July 1909. Family elders argued but since no other record exists, we settled on that. Those who could share stories on the early chapters of his life have long ceased to be. Writing an elaborate biography, sadly, does not seem a remote possibility. Then there is the additional risk - writing the biography of one's parents may inevitably lead the writer into the realm of the autobiography. For more information, visit: https://cinemaazi.com/features Thinking of my father, what I immediately recall is the silent film he liked to watch. As if we are both caught in a timeless wrap, watching the film together, repeatedly. My earliest exposure to cinema was watching films at home. The projector's familiar whirr made us leave dinner midway, rush to the drawing room of our Calcutta home at P 92 Sardar Sankar Road. Meanwhile, Baba had returned home quietly. He was busy setting up the second-hand 16mm projector acquired from the Army disposable lot. The blank wall was a picture screen. We girls sat on the floor waiting excitedly for moving images to pour out from the whirring machine behind. The wall filled with images of a ship surrounded by a group of agitated sailors.Hoping to see fairies or Donalad Duck, these mute images of angry sailors disappointed us as did Baba's choice of film. Sailors assembled before a hanging leg of crawling with maggots that sparked the October naval mutiny in Battleship Potemkin. There was an older stepsister with the romantic name Roshenara, about whose beauty we had heard but no one had seen the lady. Incidentally, aunt roshenara was married to one adinath sen from a noted Bengali family. She died at childbirth. I mention her for an interesting film connect. Adinath Sen later and his son by the second marriage, one Dibanath Sen, was the husband of actress Suchitra Sen. When Suchitra Sen. When Suchitra came to work in Devdas, I remember her addressing my father as Bimal mamu by virtue of that old family connection.