On Sharmila Tagore's birthday: Recalling Satyajit Ray's memory of the actor who launched her in Apur Sansar

Actor Sharmila Tagore turned 75 today. Way before she gained stardom in the Hindi film industry, she was a young girl who approached the legendary director Satyajit Ray for a role in the film, 'Apur Sansar'.

Although she had an extremely successful career in the Hindi film industry, she would come back to work for Ray in various films such as Nayak, Devi, Aryane Din Ratri to name a few.

In the book, 'My Years With Apu', Satyajit Ray had penned his first impressions on Sharmila Tagore. Here are excerpts from the book.

It was however not so easy to find Aparna. We put an ad in the paper asking for photographs of girls between age fifteen and seventeen to play Apu's wife. More than a thousand replies came, but not one of these deserved to be called for an interview. Once again we were beginning to despair, then word came about a girl called Sharmila Tagore who had appeared in a dance recital for the Children's Little Theatre or CLT as it was called.

She was related to the poet Tagore and was thought to be quite talented. We got in touch with the parents and asked them whether we could take a look at their daughter for a possible key role in a further episode of 'Apu'. We knew Sharmila had a younger sister who had happened to be in the film which had taken Chhabi Biswas to Berlin. So We were hoping the parents would agree in case we found she was right for the part. 

The Tagores brought their daughter to our flat. She wore a little yellow frock, which made her look like she was in her early teens which in fact she was. Dressed like that, it was difficult to imagine her as Apu's bride. Her shoulder-length and hair were also not right for Aparna - and yet she had the right features. My wife all too plainly showed disinterest, but something about the girl's eyes told me not to reject her outright. I called my wife and told her to dress the girl in a simple striped cotton saree as is normally worn by village maiden and to tie up her hair in a bun and then bring her back to the sitting room where I waited with her parents. 

The magic worked, dressed like that she was Aparna to the fingertips, she herself behaved differently after the transformation took place. She was then only thirteen but now looked about four years older. Would I show her how to act-- she asked. I said she had nothing to worry about.

Her son was played by the son of a friend of Soumitra. He was only four and a half years old and I thought I could hardly expect him to give a good performance, but by now I acquired some experience in handling children however small and difficult. 

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The very first day of shooting called for Sharmila Tagore to arrive as a bride with Apu, from her parent's place. For Apu, the situation is an awkward one, because he had gone to attend a wedding not to get married himself. He arrives in the afternoon when the menfolks are away at work and the house is comparatively quiet, except for the sound of a sewing machine.

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I had told Sharmila, as soon as she arrived in the studio her first day- that she would be starting with her most difficult scene, so that all that was followed would appear simple. She had listened but said nothing. I had told my assistants before taking the shot that the sound of sobbing would have to be dubbed, as I would be shouting directions right through the shot. 

There were no rehearsals. I shouted directions, urging Sharmila to sob to her heart's content once she had lost control of herself. This went on for a good couple of minutes. After sometime when Sharmila was asked slowly to regain her composure, she did so with considerable conviction and then, as the script had it, she found herself looking out through a rent in the curtain, at a hovel down below, where a mother was playing with a giggling child. 

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Third time lucky, Apur Sansar went on to win the President's Gold Medal and the British Film Institute's Sutherland Trophy as the most original film of the year. We were acclaimed at home and abroad and it was a huge box office success. 

Soumitra Chatterjee went on to become the most sought after actor in Bengal, while Sharmila Tagore made an extremely successful career for herself in Bombay although she returned to work for me in a number of my films.