Students of Patha Bhavan in south Kolkata have recreated characters and scenes from Satyajit Ray’s films on the walls of the school commemorating the filmmaker’s birth centenary year.
From Goopy, Bagha to Feluda and Topshe on the alleys of Jaisalmer, the Class IV students who will move to the senior school building next month paid tribute to the legend through graffiti, drawn over two days this week at Patha Bhavan Montessori and Primary Department at 13/1 Palm Avenue in Ballygunge.
This batch of students had last come to the school for a couple of months in Class III and returned to campus for a school tradition of painting the walls that the outgoing batch does.
The students bonded over paints and brushes and spent some hours dabbling in colours as they drew from four of Ray’s films — Goopy Gayne Bagha Bayne, Hirak Rajar Deshe, Sonar Kella and Joy Baba Felunath.
“It was a purely a non-academic visit and the choice was given to parents whether they wanted to send the children to school. But more than 50 per cent of students turned up and we maintained the safety protocol during the workshop,” said Kankana Das Gupta, teacher in-charge, Patha Bhavan Primary and Montessori Department.
“This will stay with us in the new year — an activity that we could not do in 2020 because of the pandemic situation,” said Das Gupta.
This being the birth centenary year of Ray, the school decided to end it by paying tribute to the maestro who designed the school logo in 1965.
Back on the campus, the students shared with the teachers that they enjoyed coming back to school.
Some of them rued that they had not been able to come for 21 months and it was already time to move on.
“We have not been here for so long and now it’s finished,” said a Class IV student to a teacher.
Students of Class V move to the senior school building.
Schools have been closed since March 2020 as a precaution against Covid.
The government allowed schools to reopen for classes IX to XII from November 16.