Nice post! Yeah, Ray films can be life changing experience for cinephiles. Not to disagree, many indian filmmakers know his name but, apart from pather panchali or apu trilogy no one really seen much of ray. That includes also the westerners who gave him the prestigious honorary oscar!
Have you seen his calcutta trilogy? Ray's style changed a lot during the turbulent times of 1970's calcutta.
Yes, Scorsese was very vocal about ray's influence. But, as far as spielberg is concerned he had a slight controversy surrounding his ET. Spielberg was known to have been pretty harsh in his response to the controversy surrounding his ET being a copy of Ray's script "Alien" , Which Ray tried hard to find a producer and was promised a hollywood production, but it finally never happened and he was cheated.
So his script was there in the hollywood. All these happened during late 60's.
Check Andrew Robinson's book "Satyajit Ray: The Inner Eye: The Biography of a Master Film-Maker"
There is a detailed chapter on this hollywood ordeal.
Ray was also a versatile personality and a encyclopedia. Particularly his understanding of western classical and indian classical music was very sophisticated!
If there is one Indian film auteur who was/is completely forgotten it is Ritwik ghatak.
Now i don't want to start a debate on Ghatak and Ray (Ghatak was more influenced by Eisenstein)
Bengali fans are polarized in this.
But, he is a tragic figure of 20th century cinema, just like his films dealt with.
Ray is popular, just people don't see his films other than the famous "Apu trilogy", Jalsaghar, Charulatha.
Sorry for the long reply.
Thanks if you have read till this.