The lost character in Satyajit Ray's Aranyer Din Ratri — the Kechki Forest Rest House

Indian Express

2 days ago

Satyajit Ray's classic Aranyer Din Ratri (Days and Nights in the Forest) is back in the news. Fifty-five years after its release, a restored 4K version of the movie was released at the Cannes Festival 2025 by Sharmila Tagore, Simi Garewal (the only two lead cast members still among us), and Wes Anderson. While reams have been written dissecting Ray, this movie, and its characters, the one character that has been all but forgotten is one that doesn't figure in the cast line up. This character is 'the forest bungalow', more specifically the Kechki Forest Rest House (FRH). Kechki was not just another 'filming location', a background prop. The FRH, and its environs, are integral parts of the story, the cinematography, and the overall mood of the film, an essential element of the film's proverbial soul. But unfortunately, unlike the film that became eternal and has now been restored, the Kechki of Aranyer Din Ratri exists no more. This is the story of Ray's Kechki and its demise.
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On the western frontiers of the Chota Nagpur plateau, in Jharkhand, lies the Palamau Tiger Reserve. The rivers Koel and Auranga — slow-moving, shallow, always flanked by sandy beaches with the Sal forests forming their daaman (hem) — snake through its lush forests. The two sister rivers meet at the northernmost tip of the tiger reserve, birthing a vast sandy expanse that almost feels like a sea beach during summers. Here, at the fork of the two rivers, lay a quaint forest bungalow, constructed by the British more than a century ago. This was the Kechki Forest Rest House, named so after the nearby little village of Kechki. The campus consisted of the bungalow, a well, an outhouse-cum-chowkidar quarter, and a small parking shed. Behind the bungalow were the lovely forests of Kechki, to its front the sangam (confluence). As you looked out from the bungalow's verandah, the wide beige sandbars of Koel greeted you to your left, the paler sands of Auranga to your right, and an immense sandy beach of their confluence lay to your front. There were no walls, no boundaries, nothing separating this forest bungalow from its surroundings except for a few wooden poles that marked out the campus boundary.
Ray chose this bungalow as the setting for his film Aranyer Din Ratri, based on the eponymously named novel by Sunil Gangopadhyay. The film, about four friends from Calcutta taking an unplanned break in the forest, begins with the lead male characters — Ashim (Soumitra Chatterjee), Sanjoy (Subhendu Chatterjee), Hari (Samit Bhanja) and Shekhar (Rabi Ghosh) arriving at the FRH.
A significant chunk of Aranyer Din Ratri is set in and around the Kechki FRH – from philosophical discussions between the leads to the quiet romance between Ashim and Aparna (Sharmila Tagore), from building up Hari's dalliance with Duli (Simi Garewal) to the hilarious scenes of Shekhar bathing at the well as well as their later amusing encounter with a Forest Range Officer. And then of course there was the iconic memory game – a scene Wes Anderson confessed to have 'stolen' from for his film Asteroid City – played by the lead characters sitting on the beach which, in my estimation, was shot somewhere on the dry sandy bed of the Koel to the left of the FRH.
The film begins with the protagonists' white ambassador rolling into Kechki. 'Persons intending to use F.R.H. must have permission of D.F.O. Daltonganj', Ashim reads aloud the rickety signboard outside the campus gate. Decades after the film was shot, in 1991, my father would go on to become the Divisional Forest Officer (D.F.O.) Daltonganj under whose jurisdiction the bungalow fell. An old-world field officer who spent more days in the forests than at his residence, various forest bungalows spread across the tiger reserve were his usual abode. Sometimes, we would join him too. Occasionally, that was at Kechki. While I had no idea who Ray was, or anything about a movie being shot here, even as a kid I vividly remember standing at the verandah and being overawed by the humongous sandy stretch that lay in front of me as the two rivers embraced. I remember picnics on the beach under the shade of the planted eucalyptus trees (a staple plantation tree for almost all FRHs in this part of India), much like the game sequence shown in the film. In 1998, we moved out of Palamau and I would not go back for over a decade.
Then, with my father again becoming the Field Director of the Tiger Reserve in 2011, I returned to Palamau. One of the first things I did was to finally watch Aranyer Din Ratri. I was riveted and fascinated seeing Kechki, and Palamau, through Ray's lens. With great excitement, I immediately drove down to Kechki. What I saw, however, made my heart sink and a surge of anger boil over. Some officer in the preceding decade had ordered the construction of a hideous, tall concrete wall around the FRH campus. The view of the river and the beach from the bungalow had now been blocked. I remember asking Abba if the wall could be pulled down. He sighed and said, 'Raza, in Indian bureaucracy, it is much easier to construct something, anything, no matter how useless, than have something pulled down. Unless the courts instruct, such an action will be immediately flagged, and unfortunately, aesthetics and historical legacy are not an explanation that an average auditor will accept.' I remember being rather miffed at him for this answer. Nonetheless, I took solace in the fact that, barring the wall, at least the bungalow, the campus and the sangam were still largely as I remembered, and largely as Ray had picturised. There were a few minor changes — couple of rear bathroom doors had been bricked up, the old hand-drawn fan shown in the film had been replaced by a regular fan, a heavy concrete lid covered the well where Rabi Ghosh's character would often bathe, the chowkidar's outhouse had collapsed — but nothing too drastic. That was 2012.
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Abba was transferred out in 2014, and with that, my permanent stay at Palamau came to an end. Yet, I would keep returning to Palamau. Then, in early 2015, I was informed of something that absolutely gutted me. 'Kechki FRH has been 'renovated' by the tiger reserve management', I was told. I knew what 'renovation' meant as far as heritage FRHs go, even though I desperately hoped to be wrong. Unfortunately, as the photos of the 'renovated' FRH came through, I jostled between feelings of heartbreak, despair and extreme anger. The bungalow had been completely defaced and disfigured under the guise of 'modernising' and 'upgrading' it. The old facade had been entirely altered making the FRH unrecognisable. The charming old sloping clay-tiled roof had been done away with, the verandah pillars redesigned. The chuna textured walls had been painted over in the most gaudy colours imaginable, while a ghastly floor-to-ceiling iron mesh had been put around all the verandahs. Old windows and doors had been replaced or blocked. Tacky shiny tiles had been laid over the old graceful cement floor, while the alignment of rooms and passageways picturised in the film had been changed. The antique wooden furniture had been discarded to be replaced by cheap plastic and plywood. Shimmering faux wood panelling had been installed haphazardly. If this was not enough, the walls around the FRH had been raised even higher, akin to prison walls. It was as if the planners had decided that under no circumstances should the river or the beaches be visible from the FRH. The old chowkidar quarter was gone, a random concrete shed had been built next to the old well. A horrendously massive concrete 'watch tower', resembling a prison guard-post, constructed just beyond the wall, towered over the bungalow. The separation of the bungalow from its surroundings was absolute. Kechki had become unrecognisable.
Over the next decade, even as I returned to Palamau every year, I deliberately gave Kechki a miss. Then, in 2023, having made my peace with the mindless destruction of heritage and aesthetics, I decided to go back to Kechki one more time. As I drove down the same road that forms the opening sequence of the film, eventually opening up to the FRH campus, I sighed in disbelief! Just as I thought things couldn't get worse, there it was — even more mindless construction inside and around the FRH campus. Disused generator rooms, abandoned canteen, dilapidated toilets units — more defacing, more concretisation. I stepped inside the bungalow. It was crumbling and decaying, despite all the 'renovation' in the past, since no officer visited it anymore. Here I saw screengrabs from Aranyer Din Ratri hung up in one of the passageways. Looking at them, I chuckled in disgust. We had defaced and destroyed Ray's Kechki, and now had the audacity to promote this grotesque monstrosity created over its corpse as a celebration of his legacy. I walked out to the beach. More concretisation — gazebos, cement benches, random sheds.
I wondered what drives this 'saundariyakaran' (beautification) mania that has gripped all government agencies across India, this mindless urge to 'beautify' what is already beautiful – from old heritage buildings to waterfalls, lakes to river banks. Why does the idea of 'beautification' or 'development' of a site or building always mean stripping away its simplicity – the very simplicity that made that place or building beautiful – and swarming it with thoughtless concretisation with utter disregard for history and heritage, legacy and aesthetics? Neither Ray's film nor the innate heritage value of the old Kechki FRH could save it from its doom. As my spirits dipped pondering over these thoughts, the sun began dipping too. I walked out to the riverbank through the unsightly iron gate. The last fading slivers of light shimmered over the waters of the two rivers. I gazed out towards a particular face of the beach, almost precisely the spot picturised being gazed upon by Ray's protagonists from the bungalow. The banal 'I Love New York' rip-off logo — an eyesore from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, plastered everywhere from waterfalls to petrol pumps to dusty town squares – read '# Kechki Sangam' with a heart emoticon. I sighed just as the combined waters of Koel and Auranga quenched the sun.
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At the beginning of this year, a friend sent me a video of the newly inaugurated 'Kechki Sangam Eco Retreat'. The Forest Department had built some more at Kechki — a row of villa-style double-storied cottages, along with a new restaurant, more gazebos, concrete sit-outs, numerous lamp posts, bonfire pits, a manicured tiled nature trail, and so on. And of course, more fencing and new walls. Pushed behind this new tourist facility, the old forest bungalow now lay relegated to the margins, dated, decrepit, forlorn, forgotten.
Scrolling through the videos and photos, I wondered if my thought process and views were as dated and decrepit as the bungalow itself. Will those tourists visiting this place care what existed before, anyway? Those visiting Kechki for the first time, or even those who perhaps come here on a casual visit after watching Ray's film, will, in all likelihood, go back perfectly content and happy. Only those who knew what Kechki once was might, perhaps, just perhaps, mourn its loss. And who am I to pass judgments anyway, on what is simple and quaint and what is concretised and monstrous, on what is beautiful and what is ugly? And what is the point of mourning a place, a memory, all over again when it was lost a long time ago anyway?
Nonetheless, even as these doubts swirled around in my head, I was sure of one thing — neither Ray, nor any of those associated with Aranyer Din Ratri would recognise Kechki anymore. Ray's Kechki, the Kechki of my childhood, was dead. And in that moment, I knew that I would never go back to Kechki again.
The writer is a conservationist, wildlife historian and works with Wildlife Conservation Trust, Mumbai