Ray's 'blackface' moment

In Satyajit Ray's 'Aranyer Din Ratri', Simi Garewal donned black body paint, a problem that persists in cinema

- Somak Ghoshal

Satyajit Ray's 1970 classic Aranyer Din Ratri recently received a standing ovation at the Cannes film festival. Restored by Film Heritage Foundation, the movie was presented by Wes Anderson, along with Sharmila Tagore and Simi Garewal, the only surviving members of the cast.

Tagore played the urbane Aparna in the film, beguiling four young men who come to Palamau in Jharkhand (then in Bihar) for a break from their busy lives in Kolkata. She is a sharp contrast to Garewal's Duli, a Santhal woman, who plays a pivotal role in the denouement.

For the first few days of the shoot, Ray had Garewal observe tribal women at a local watering hole. Once she had understood the nuances of their demeanour, she had her body blackened. On her website, the actor says it took four hours for her to become Duli, and three hours to remove the paint afterwards.

In the 1960s, when Ray shot