Delight is evident in filmmaker Sandip Ray’s voice when he hears that Martin Scorsese has been the toast of the Academy this year, winning the award that had eluded him five times. Many time zones from the Kodak Theater of Los Angeles, at the legendary Bishop Lefroy Road, Ray is only too happy to remember the relationship the American filmmaker shared with father.

The Oscar, of course, is the obvious bond. But their association actually began a few years before Ray was presented the Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1991 when filmmakers James Ivory and Ismail Merchant “initiated” a move to gather support for him. In Scorsese, they found a backer so committed that he was able to create a support base that included, says Ray, “everybody between Gregory Peck, Jack Lemon and Audrey Hepburn”.

Scorsese had reasons to chip in with support. DK Basu, professor at the University of California and the brain behind the US-based Satyajit Ray Film and Study Collection that has Scorsese in its advisory board, says Scorsese, along with filmmakers Francis Ford Coppola and Philip Kaufman, attested their loyalties to Ray many times. “They said they would not be making films had they not seen Pather Panchali,” says Basu — who had carried the Oscar statuette to the ailing Ray’s bedside from the US — on email.

In a testimonial in the official Ray website, satyajitray.

org, Scorsese says: “Ray’s magic, the simple poetry of his images and their emotional impact will always stay with me”. He was in high school, Scorsese adds, when he saw Pather Panchali. “It didn’t matter what they were saying, what they wore — you suddenly realise that there are other cultures in world”. Scorsese films are defined by the heavy use of violence. The one film he attributed to Ray’s influence on his 10th death anniversary, was Kundan, his biopic on Dalai Lama.