Where It All Began: The First Spark in My Filmmaking Journey

I don't remember the exact date. Honestly, I don’t even recall the month or year. But I do remember the phase of life I was in — a phase soaked in the gentle, unhurried rhythm of childhood. I must have been 8 or 9 years old, living with my grandmother and uncles. It was a warm, affectionate world — full of smells from the kitchen, stories told in the afternoon, and a certain ritual that belonged only to Sundays.

Every Sunday at 4 PM sharp, Doordarshan Bangla would air a Bengali film. That was our time — mine and my grandmother’s. A fixed appointment. No distractions, no questions asked. It was a big deal for me. Sunday was one of the rare full holidays, the only other being Thursday, as I studied in St. Xavier’s, Sodepur.

Even though, on other days, I would rush out to the field to play the moment school ended — on Sundays, I stayed put. I waited. Not just out of habit, but from a place I didn’t understand then — a place that now I feel may have been love.

Love for cinema, though I didn’t know it yet.

It was just a routine, until one Sunday — a particular Sunday — something shifted. A film called ‘Apur Sansar’ was playing. I didn't know who Satyajit Ray was at the time. I had no idea about the gravity of that name or the legacy of his films. I was just a kid, sitting cross-legged beside my grandmother, watching a film unfold.

And then it happened.

There was a scene — Apu, the protagonist, watching a bioscope film in a theatre. The shot slowly zooms into the screen of the bioscope… and the next frame opens out from a window of a horse cart. It blended so seamlessly, so magically, that it almost didn’t feel like a cut.

But my young mind didn’t just watch it. It caught it.

Something inside me paused and whispered — How was that done?

That one question… turned into a journey.

I didn’t realize it then, but that was the seed. The beginning of the restlessness. Of the curiosity that never quite left me. That scene planted something in me — something I still carry. It’s what brought me here, to where I am now. A so-called filmmaker. Or, as I still prefer to call myself — a hungry student learning filmmaking a bit more everyday.

Always learning, always chasing that same wonder I felt that Sunday.