Parash Pathar (Bangla: পরশ পাথর Porosh Pathor; English: The Philosopher's Stone; French: La Pierre Philosophale) (1958) was Satyajit Ray's first film apart from the Apu Trilogy. It was also his first comedy and first magical realist film. Adapted from a short story of the same name by Parasuram (Rajsekhar Bose), the film offered an early glimpse of Ray's sense of humor, centered on a middle-class clerk who accidentally discovers a stone that can ...
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Parash Pathar (Bangla: পরশ পাথর Porosh Pathor; English: The Philosopher's Stone; French: La Pierre Philosophale) (1958) was Satyajit Ray's first film apart from the Apu Trilogy. It was also his first comedy and first magical realist film. Adapted from a short story of the same name by Parasuram (Rajsekhar Bose), the film offered an early glimpse of Ray's sense of humor, centered on a middle-class clerk who accidentally discovers a stone that can turn other objects into gold.
Paresh Chandra Dutt (Tulsi Chakrabarti), a middle-class bank clerk in Kolkata, attends a charity match on a rainy day rather reluctantly. At Curzon Park (modern-day Surendranath Park), where the match is apparently to be held, he finds a small, round stone. Thinking it is a marble, he gives it to his nephew. The child discovers that it turns metal into gold (i.e. it is the Philosopher's stone).
Dutt "buys" the stone from the child with sweets after witnessing the stone's power himself. He decides to take a few old...
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