Recently, we took our son to see Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne on the big screen. He had already seen the movie twice on CD, so it was not exactly a first-time experience for him. But, like us, we wanted him to know the film's sparkling dialogues by heart too. We wanted him to cherish the experience of watching vintage Ray... maybe instil in him a sense of the nearly-lost Bengali heritage, for which, I'm sure, he'll thank us one day. Like I do my parents.

I was not even born when GoogaBaba first released in Calcutta and went on to break box-office records. The first time I saw it was on our huge black-and-white television. I was about four then and the only scene that stuck on in memory from that viewing was the dance of the ghosts. The same dance, which now, ironically enough, seems (at the risk of sounding blasphemous to all true-blue Ray-philes) tad long and tedious. Why, you can actually spot the humans beneath those 'ghostly' make-up, I thought, not for the first time, yesterday. I glanced at my five-year-old, fearing that he, exposed as he is to state-of-the-art cartoons all through the day, might be thinking the same. But he was staring at screen and, as he sensed me looking at him, turned and whispered, 'What are those ghosts called?' On screen, the fat ghosts were dancing then.

I needn't have worried. My son giggled happily at Goopy and Bagha's antics, asked us anxiously if the Halla king was good or bad, and nodded along with the songs. So did most of the children in the auditorium. And all the parents. Yes, the parents were enjoying the movie most. Each dialogue, a legend by now, was greeted by hoots of laughter and I caught quite a few grown-ups humming along. If for the children, the film was enjoyable, for the parents, it was fond nostalgia, a wonderful journey back in time.