 Ray followed Apur Sansar with Devi ( The Goddess ) , a film in which he examined the superstitions in Hindu society . Sharmila Tagore starred as <unk> , a young wife who is deified by her father @-@ in @-@ law . Ray was worried that the censor board might block his film , or at least make him re @-@ cut it , but Devi was spared . In 1961 , on the insistence of Prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru , Ray was commissioned to make a documentary on Rabindranath Tagore , on the occasion of the poet 's birth centennial , a tribute to the person who likely most influenced Ray . Due to limited footage of Tagore , Ray faced the challenge of making a film out of mainly static material . He said that it took as much work as three feature films . 
