'Satyajit Ray Trail' to attract cinema-loving tourists

Flashback

The “Satyajit Ray Trail,” as the initiative will get known once it becomes a reality, will cover shooting locales of the master’s immortal debut film “Pather Panchali” as well as other masterpieces near Shantiniketan.

While many countries in the world have developed highly-lucrative tourist packages revolving around the shooting locales and film studios and characters, India, despite being the producer of the maximum number of movies every year, till now had not woken up to the potential in this segment.

The Centre has already accepted a proposal from the West Bengal government to develop the Trail at an estimated cost of Rs 50 crore, sources in the Union Tourism Ministry said here. The importance given to the idea is reflected in the fact that the Trail will be developed as a “mega project” of the Tourism Ministry.

“The Oscar-winning filmmaker is a pride of our country, and cinema-loving tourists from all over the world will surely be keen to visit the locations where he shot many of his masterpieces,”  sources told Deccan Herald. The exact locations of shooting of Ray’s films are being identified with the help of one of his crew members, Ramesh Sen, and also in consultation with the late director’s filmmaker son Sandip Ray. The locations are spread over a vast stretch of Birbhum district and partly in neighbouring Burdwan district.

Apart from the filming locations, nearby Shantiniketan is already a major draw for both foreign and domestic tourists because of its association with Rabindranath Tagore.
The Trail will be developed to include proto-types of scenes shot at different locations with brief description of the script and narration of some important events during  film shooting. There will also be illumination and landscaping of the shooting spots, and there will be Tourist Interpretation Centres. “Pather Panchali” was partly shot at Boral, about 5 km from Kolkata, but while it has fallen prey to rapid urbanisation, quite a few of other locations in Birbhum and around Shantiniketan at Bolpur retain some of their original flavour.

According to the proposal, the Trail is likely to start from Bolpur in Shantiniketan, around 160 km from Kolkata.