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August 8, 2004
Holmes of Kolkata
The series The Adventures of Feluda consists of 35 stories, written by one of the greatest filmmakers of our times, Satyajit Ray. A writer, screenwriter, director, producer, advertising man, illustrator, composer, graphic designer, he directed over 30 films, wrote over 40 books, (a similar number of books have been written about him) and received no less than 60 national and international awards — winning almost every major prize that could be won! In 1992, at the age of 71, and on his deathbed, he received an Oscar for a lifetime of achievement in films.
Born in in a family of exceptionally gifted people, Ray wrote the Adventures of Feluda, appearing in Sandesh, between 1965 and 1992, most of which were extremely popular among Bengali children. Humour is an important aspect of the exploits of detective Feluda. Urbane and clever, Feluda has won children over, and now the English translations by Puffin Books, of a dozen of these stories, has made them available widely.
The four children’s books under review are based on the super sleuth Feluda, whose real name is Pradosh Chander Mitter, and who is accompanied by his cousin Topshe. Sometimes, a half-witted crime-fiction writer on the lookout for exciting adventures — Lalmohan Babu alias Jatayu — also assists Feluda. A highly ‘visual’ person, Ray had the ability to imagine not only things that were tangible but also those that were abstract — like music — a useful trait which few authors have, but one that gives them the opportunity to express their words in pictures as they themselves see them.
Unfortunately, the four storybooks under review do not have any illustrations. However, Gopi Majumdar has done a great job with the translations; the racy tempo and vivid characterizations maintain the reader’s interest with such impact that the illustrations are not missed too much. In The Golden Fortress Ray takes the reader out from the congested city of Kolkata to the sandy deserts of Rajhastan, where the archaeological romance of cities such as Jodhpur, Bikaner and Jaisalmar is interwoven with the hair-raising escapades of Feluda and Topshe, ala Sherlock Holmes and Watson. Like Watson, Topshe narrates all the stories. In The Golden Fortress the two are on the trail of a parapsychologist Dr Hajra and a jatismar boy — Mukul — eight years of age. Jatismar is a term that is used for people who claim to remember their previous lives.
The complex case that Feluda has to unravel has several strands and several steps. Far-flung desert cities; a reincarnated boy from lush, tropical Bengal who remembers sandy deserts, peacocks, and a golden fortress; suspicious characters lurking in Circuit Houses and Dak Bungalows; railway platforms and old forts; taxi drives and camel rides; friendly Sardarjis and ominous-looking Rajhastani bandits... The story of The Golden Fortress is replete with these, plus the inevitable hidden treasure that is the main objective of the bad guys for kidnapping Mukul.
The second book, Incident on the Kalka Mail is a tale of switched attache cases, and the deft handling of the case by Feluda. “Feluda spoke with ice in his voice. ‘You do realize, don’t you, that the tables have turned? So stop playing this game and let’s hear what you have to say.’” Most typical of the detective, who always seems to have the upper hand, eventually. In the same book, he and his two assistants have to travel to Shimla which, according to young Topshe, is a hill-station for which they had to first travel by airplane from Kolkata to Delhi and then on a metre gauge train from Kalka to Simla.
“I had seen snow-capped mountains before — Kanchenjunga in Darjeeling and the top of Annapurna from a plane — and certainly I had seen snow in films. But nothing had startled me as much as what I saw in Shimla. If it wasn’t for other Indians strolling on the streets, I could have sworn we were in a foreign country,” he says, referring to the snow, the neatly laid out wooden cottages and the Alpine forests in Shimla.
On the Kalka Mail is another thrilling adventure that includes an old manuscript and a large diamond, and which reaches its climax on the snowy slopes of the popular Indian hill-station.
The Secret of the Cemetery, the third book, is a complex, blood-curdling mystery of an English and a Bengali family interlinked by marriages. The story unfolds in Kolkata’s Park Street cemetery as well as in some of the city’s old murky lanes and buildings. Any tale that has to do with a century old dug-up grave, a midnight vigil in the graveyard, cryptograms, antique clocks and watches is sure to make the reader jittery, and The Secret of the Cemetery is no exception.
The protagonist trio of this particular adventure remain in the city of their origin, rather than travelling to other places in the country, like they do for most cases. Ray however does not miss a chance to familiarize his young readers with some of the history of the city, as well as with its different landmarks.
Nevertheless, in The Criminals of Kathmandu the clever Bengali detective and the duo, Topshe and Lalmohan Babu, get to travel to Nepal to resolve a murder mystery and much more. The Feluda series comprises small, handy paperbacks, a good size to handle and cuddle with in bed at night, devouring the thrillers, savouring the flow of the language, and indeed also learning a great deal about people and places in the bargain!
The Adventures of Feluda
By Satyajit Ray
Translated from Bengali by Gopa Majumdar Puffin/Penguin India
For more info log on to
www.penguinbooksindia.com Indian Rs99 each
The Golden Fortress
ISBN 014333577-4
119pp
Incident On The Kalka Mail
ISBN 014333578-2
95pp
The Secret Of The Cemetery
ISBN 014333580- 4
110pp
The Criminals of Kathmandu
ISBN 014333572-3
89pp
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