Goopy and Bagha are gone
One part of our childhood to which he had clung so tenaciously finally came to an end when the surviving member of the Goopy Bagha duo, Tapan Chatterji passed away yesterday. He was a professional actor and had acted in many movies, but to our generation he was Goopy Gyne, the failed vocalist who with the help of a boon from the King of the Ghosts, became singer par excellence. Based on a short story written by Satyajit Ray’s grandfather, Upendra Kishore Roychowdhury, The Goopy Bagha series was part of our childhood, our young adult rebelliousness and our middle aged nostalgia for our lost youth. The first film was made in 1968. We were then 10 years of age, and just the right age to suspend disbelief and breathlessly enjoy the tale of Goopy and Bagha as they rose from exiled young men with no talent to the favoured sons in law of the King of Shundi. The songs were magnificent. We realized for the first time that Satyajit Ray was a genius in composition and lyric writing as well. And...