India, May 3 -- When E .T., the Extra-Terrestrial was released in 1982, audiences were captivated by the tender story of a stranded alien befriending a child. Yet few know that nearly two decades earlier, Satyajit Ray had written a screenplay titled The Alien, centred on a benign extraterrestrial who forms a bond with a young boy in rural Bengal. Though Ray's project never materialised into a film, its conceptual similarities to E.T. later sparked international debate. Whether coincidence or not, this proves that Ray's thoughts and ideas were ahead of time; not confined by region or nationality, they had a universal resonance.

As this 2nd of May marks the 105th birth anniversary of Satyajit Ray, we would like to turn the focus to a lesse...