How Ray used optical illusion to create a ‘real’ train in Nayak

New Delhi: The train, one of the prime attractions of Satyajit Ray’s Nayak, was created in a studio and the master filmmaker used optical illusion to look it swing like a real one, says his son Sandip.

Nayak is one of Ray’s most popular films starring Uttam Kumar and Sharmila Tagore.

“Many of those who watched Nayak believe that the film was made on a real train. The truth is that the train was made in a studio by Bansi Chandragupta, the film’s art director. He took great pains to make the set,” says Sandip.

He was 12 years old when his father started working on Nayak in 1965.

“He (Bansi) followed the plans of air-conditioned vestibule express which he acquired from the workshop of the Indian Railways at Lilua near Kolkata. Baba told him that the train should be made in such a manner that it could swing lightly like a real train,” he recalls.

Initially, Bansi planned to place the train on tyres but then realised that the tyres were not strong enough to carry the heavy weight of the train.

“In fact, it was so heavy that it could not be swung at all. That upset Bansi uncle. But Baba found a way out of the problem. He instructed one of his unit members to swing a canteen hanging on the train which gave an optical illusion of the swinging of the train. The train looked all the more real because of the addition of the sounds of a train running to the swinging,” says Sandip.

Now HarperCollins has brought out a novelisation of the film. Titled Nayak: The Hero, it is penned by Bhaskar Chattopadhyay.

“The film Nayak is very important in my career as an actor. This novelisation of its brilliant original screenplay, 50 years after the film was made, is testimony to Satyajit Ray’s enduring genius as a storyteller,” says Sharmila Tagore. In the book’s foreword, Sandip also mentions that Tagore was dating Tiger Pataudi when she worked for Nayak.

“Tiger would come to see the shoots. Sometimes, he came to pick up Rinku-di (Tagore) after pack-up,” he says.

According to Sandip, watching his father at work was great fun, but seeing the captain of the Indian cricket team was an extra attraction for him to go to the sets of Nayak.