What Satyajit Ray gifted Sharmila for her wedding

Quite a few guests must have wondered what to gift Kareena Kapoor and Saif Ali Khan at their wedding. After all, what does one gift someone who seems to have it all?

The great Satyajit Ray was in a similar dilemma when he was invited to Saif's mother Sharmila Tagore's wedding in 1968. That's when he had a brillant idea.

We present an excerpt from the book Manik And I, My Life with Satyajit Ray, by Bijoya Ray, Translated by Indrani Majumdar, where the director's wife Bijoya Ray reveals the wedding gift. Read on:

The year turned out to be a good one.

On 27 December 1968 Rinku (Sharmila) married the famous cricketer and Nawab of Pataudi, Mansur Ali Khan. She had invited us to two events and we attended both.

We couldn't decide what to give her as a gift.

An idea finally occurred to Manik.

He said, 'Can't we give her a 16 mm print of Apur Sansar? She clearly has no dearth of saris and jewellery; this would certainly make for a unique gift!'

And that's what we did.

Babu (Sandip Ray, son) had quit a backache after carrying so many cans of films!

Excerpted from Manik And I, My Life with Satyajit Ray, by Bijoya Ray, Translated by Indrani Majumdar, Penguin India, 2012, Rs 699, with the publisher's kind permission.

You can buy this book at the Rediff Bookstore.

For more excerpts, click here