KOLKATA: It was to be a tribute to a sitar maestro from a master filmmaker. It was a series of frames, painted in the form of a visual script that was to be made into a documentary way back in the Fifties. But it never saw the light of the day, ending up, instead, in the personal collection of its creator - Satyajit Ray . Titled "A Sitar Recital by Ravi Shankar ", Ray had made the storyboard for a film on the legendary musician with whom he had collaborated for 'Pather Panchali' and its two celebrated sequels. The 32-page script will finally be released in the form of a book on Ray's 95th birth anniversary on May 2.

The book, called "Satyajit Ray's Ravi Shankar: An Unfilmed Visual Script", has much more than just a series of water-colour paintings, though. It includes two articles on Ravi Shankar by Ray, an interview of the sitar maestro on Ray and several rare photographs featuring the musician. It also has the customary technical details, notes and instructions that laced his scripts. While Ray never dated the script , nor spoke about it or explained why he never attempted to make the film, it is believed that he made it in the late-Fifties, soon after 'Pather Panchali'.

"The painting style and the use of water colours suggest that he made the script in the Fifties. In fact, he had painted a brochure for 'Pather Panchali' that is incredibly similar to this style. Apart from 'Pather Panchali', this is the only script in which he used water-colour frames. He switched over to ink from his second film and never changed the practice till the last," said Ray scholar Ujjal Chakrabarty.

The script has been lying at the Ray Society archive housed at the director's Bishop Lefroy Road residence. That was till the society decided to make it into a book. "It is a hard-bound copy with very neatly drawn pictures and texts, typical of Ray. The work suggests that Ray was very serious about making the film at one stage, but gave up the idea for some reason. We have preserved the script and converted it into a book that has been embellished with articles and pictures. We have managed to include some rare shots of Ray and Ravi Shankar taken during the shooting of 'Pather Panchali'," said Arup K De, CEO of the Ray Society and one of the editors of the book. The others are Sandip Ray, Dhritiman Chatterjee, Debashish Mukherjee and Deepak Mukherjee . Sandip Ray is the member-secretary of the society.

All the 120 frames painted by the filmmaker for the script find place in the book. They had been created to guide camera angles, height and camera movement. "The frames were drawn from the point of view of a filmmaker. They form a moving script, depicting Ravi Shankar at a performance," said Chakrabarty. It is not clear why Ray abandoned his plan to film it. "Perhaps, there was a date problem. Ravi Shankar had already left the country by then and Ray, too, had got busy with films and his other creative activities. It was difficult for them, at that stage, to come together for a few days to shoot," observed Chakrabarty.

The Ray Society, however, refused to speculate why he scrapped the idea. "He never explained why he dropped the idea. In fact, he had referred to it just once in an interview. So, it won't be right to speculate," said De.

Along with the book, which will be released by actor Naseeruddin Shah , another collection of short stories that were filmed by Ray will also be inaugurated. These stories, translated into English, include 'Jalsaghar', 'Kapurush' and 'Mahanagar'. Shah will deliver the Satyajit Ray Memorial Lecture after the inauguration. It will be followed by the screening of Ray films - "Two" and "Inner Eye".

