Nose for a crime caper
If Bengaluru has its Inspector Gowda (author Anita Nair ’s creation), Kolkata has DSP Bikram. Monabi Mitra ’s last of the three-book series, The Final Report, is about the mellowed-down police officer Bikram Chatterjee and his exploits. He appeared first in FIR and The Dead Don’t Confess — two books that fall neatly into the detective genre. Murders , motives , suspects and plots — Mitra brings them all together using Kolkata as the backdrop. The Final Report is true to its predecessors and has plenty of action. The suspense is built-up expertly and the climax is worthy of a film. Here, Mitra discusses the book and having to finish the series.
Is DSP Bikram inspired by your IPS officer husband?
Sherlock Holmes had Dr Watson, Poirot had Hastings, what about DPS Bikram?
Bikram has the ever faithful Ghosh. Unlike conventional sidekicks, Ghosh is not the bumbling dullard but often provides flashes of insight and intelligent inputs. He is fierce and protective — almost a father figure. In real life Indian policing, there is often an aging subordinate — lower in hierarchy but higher in experience.
DSP Bikram has been likened to Chulbul Pandey, at least in looks. Have you received any film deals?
Yes, I have for films as well as TV, but I'm not sure if they'll work out. Without the Chulbul Pandey kind of histrionics, which Bikram doesn't quite deliver, will the unknown public be willing to accept a more credible but less stereotypical policeman?
And what challenges would such a policeman face?
Policing can be a matter of endless tedium, immense frustration, a huge amount of paperwork and a continuous juggle between law and order duties and crime work that contribute to a deadening effect. At the same time, the role of policemen in our country remains vague and they end up doing all kinds of things after which they get bad press and are taunted or hated by almost all. With such poor confidence and a dismal public image, some work still gets done. As Bikram says to Ghosh in this book, “I grew up seeing how policemen were hated by the majority of ordinary law-abiding people they were called upon to protect”. This sad fact is the biggest challenge to being a police officer today.
Are you satisfied with the way Bikram’s character has evolved?
The nature of one’s work shapes one’s personality. In FIR, Bikram is younger, sure of himself, hurls headlong into raids without looking over his shoulder and can’t believe he can make a mistake. In The Final Report, there is a sense of weariness as well as a sense of acceptance. The hurly burly is done and it’s time for other Bikrams to come and take the stage. I think I’ve communicated this mellower mood through my writing.
Why did you chose to set the book in Kolkata?
Kolkata is my home. Disordered, unexpected, maddening and yet one can’t really get away from it. Kipling disparagingly referred to it as: Palace, byre, hovel — poverty and pride — side by side. I think it is this combination that can show us the darkest depths of the human mind. Mumbai has had its fair share of crime novels and I felt Kolkata also deserved one.
You’ve also contextualised the crimes to the city.
Yes I did. I am aware that there are many old houses being torn down here, especially in the older parts of the city, with beautiful stuff being sold off at meagre prices to slick buyers from other parts of India. There is an equal amount of poaching activity in the mangrove forests of the Sunderbans. All these are realities which I used in my novel.
Can you sum up the main ingredients for an engaging whodunnit?
Crime is fascinating because through the idea of murder, evil is reviewed and though, in the end, its moral wrongness is assured, the dread as well as the attractiveness of wrongdoing is briefly felt. Also, the process of unwinding the clues is like a quest. In that sense, a whodunit presents a problem, goes through a series of steps to untangle it and finally arrives at a reasonable solution. Through it we see the eternal conflict between good and evil, light and darkness.
Why do you think Indian detectives are not as popular as Poirot and Sherlock Holmes?
Perhaps, it is because there is so much to choose from that readers turn to the staples for crime. I hope this will change and that Indian readers will turn to crime writing set in India with recognisable characters and backdrops.
Now that the adventures of DSP Bikram are over. How do you feel?
It feels sad to say goodbye to Bikram and his team because they have been buzzing around my head for so long. Perhaps, I may re-visit them again, some day, when they are older and wiser and out of active policing and come together again to solve a crime. I have no plans for a book immediately, but I'm sure I will start again soon. One writes, not because one wants to but because one has to, so I know there will be another book!
In The Atelier
MONABI MITRA
Kolkata-based Monabi Mitra juggles writing with her day job as a lecturer. So, in the late hours of the night, after putting her son to bed and arranging her lecture (she teaches English at Scottish Church College), and “decoding the following day’s breakfast” she settles into the routine of writing the adventures of DSP Bikram. “The tale grew in the telling,” she says. Most Bengalis, she says, grew up reading books about detectives such as Byomkesh Bakshi, Feluda and Kirti who, according to her, were modelled on the Western detective genre and yet were uniquely Indian. She personally likes reading Freeman Wills Croft, Ellery Queen and Margery Allingham. “I love their insights into the universals of character within their use of a closed space for unfolding the crime.”
When a young girl falls to her death from the Mission Row Police Housing Complex, home to DSP Bikram Chatterjee, Crime Branch goes into a tizzy. Who is she? Is it murder or suicide? And, most importantly, how did she manage to climb up to the roof without being noticed? As DSP Bikram grapples with death in his own backyard, elsewhere in the city two young criminals explore new modus operandi. To add to the chaos, there is a sudden spurt in wildlife poaching and the theft of antiques. The deeper he investigates, the more questions he is confronted with. Are all these crimes connected? This time DSP Bikram has more on his hands than he can handle because it’s not just the crime — he wants to sort out his personal life as well. The third and final book in the series, The Final Report, is an engrossing read.
PUBLISHER: Penguin Books India
PRICE: Rs 199
PAGES: 256
Is DSP Bikram inspired by your IPS officer husband?
When I began writing the first book about six years ago, I felt there had to be an answer to the guns and glamour kind of representations of the police that turned up in all the movies and television serials. Being married to a policeman helped. One could eavesdrop and riffle through files without guilt! My own career as a professor was so different from his. I realised that I was moving between two worlds, the rigours of academics by day, and the shadowy, rather bleak world of policing I caught glimpses of, at home, by night. I decided to write a book focussing not just on the solving of a crime but the processes behind it. I decided to use the 'police procedural' genre. Creative imagination is complex and real people may have influenced some of the characters in my novel.
Sherlock Holmes had Dr Watson, Poirot had Hastings, what about DPS Bikram?
Bikram has the ever faithful Ghosh. Unlike conventional sidekicks, Ghosh is not the bumbling dullard but often provides flashes of insight and intelligent inputs. He is fierce and protective — almost a father figure. In real life Indian policing, there is often an aging subordinate — lower in hierarchy but higher in experience.
DSP Bikram has been likened to Chulbul Pandey, at least in looks. Have you received any film deals?
Yes, I have for films as well as TV, but I'm not sure if they'll work out. Without the Chulbul Pandey kind of histrionics, which Bikram doesn't quite deliver, will the unknown public be willing to accept a more credible but less stereotypical policeman?
And what challenges would such a policeman face?
Policing can be a matter of endless tedium, immense frustration, a huge amount of paperwork and a continuous juggle between law and order duties and crime work that contribute to a deadening effect. At the same time, the role of policemen in our country remains vague and they end up doing all kinds of things after which they get bad press and are taunted or hated by almost all. With such poor confidence and a dismal public image, some work still gets done. As Bikram says to Ghosh in this book, “I grew up seeing how policemen were hated by the majority of ordinary law-abiding people they were called upon to protect”. This sad fact is the biggest challenge to being a police officer today.
Are you satisfied with the way Bikram’s character has evolved?
The nature of one’s work shapes one’s personality. In FIR, Bikram is younger, sure of himself, hurls headlong into raids without looking over his shoulder and can’t believe he can make a mistake. In The Final Report, there is a sense of weariness as well as a sense of acceptance. The hurly burly is done and it’s time for other Bikrams to come and take the stage. I think I’ve communicated this mellower mood through my writing.
Why did you chose to set the book in Kolkata?
Kolkata is my home. Disordered, unexpected, maddening and yet one can’t really get away from it. Kipling disparagingly referred to it as: Palace, byre, hovel — poverty and pride — side by side. I think it is this combination that can show us the darkest depths of the human mind. Mumbai has had its fair share of crime novels and I felt Kolkata also deserved one.
You’ve also contextualised the crimes to the city.
Yes I did. I am aware that there are many old houses being torn down here, especially in the older parts of the city, with beautiful stuff being sold off at meagre prices to slick buyers from other parts of India. There is an equal amount of poaching activity in the mangrove forests of the Sunderbans. All these are realities which I used in my novel.
Can you sum up the main ingredients for an engaging whodunnit?
Crime is fascinating because through the idea of murder, evil is reviewed and though, in the end, its moral wrongness is assured, the dread as well as the attractiveness of wrongdoing is briefly felt. Also, the process of unwinding the clues is like a quest. In that sense, a whodunit presents a problem, goes through a series of steps to untangle it and finally arrives at a reasonable solution. Through it we see the eternal conflict between good and evil, light and darkness.
Why do you think Indian detectives are not as popular as Poirot and Sherlock Holmes?
Perhaps, it is because there is so much to choose from that readers turn to the staples for crime. I hope this will change and that Indian readers will turn to crime writing set in India with recognisable characters and backdrops.
Now that the adventures of DSP Bikram are over. How do you feel?
It feels sad to say goodbye to Bikram and his team because they have been buzzing around my head for so long. Perhaps, I may re-visit them again, some day, when they are older and wiser and out of active policing and come together again to solve a crime. I have no plans for a book immediately, but I'm sure I will start again soon. One writes, not because one wants to but because one has to, so I know there will be another book!
In The Atelier
MONABI MITRA
Kolkata-based Monabi Mitra juggles writing with her day job as a lecturer. So, in the late hours of the night, after putting her son to bed and arranging her lecture (she teaches English at Scottish Church College), and “decoding the following day’s breakfast” she settles into the routine of writing the adventures of DSP Bikram. “The tale grew in the telling,” she says. Most Bengalis, she says, grew up reading books about detectives such as Byomkesh Bakshi, Feluda and Kirti who, according to her, were modelled on the Western detective genre and yet were uniquely Indian. She personally likes reading Freeman Wills Croft, Ellery Queen and Margery Allingham. “I love their insights into the universals of character within their use of a closed space for unfolding the crime.”
When a young girl falls to her death from the Mission Row Police Housing Complex, home to DSP Bikram Chatterjee, Crime Branch goes into a tizzy. Who is she? Is it murder or suicide? And, most importantly, how did she manage to climb up to the roof without being noticed? As DSP Bikram grapples with death in his own backyard, elsewhere in the city two young criminals explore new modus operandi. To add to the chaos, there is a sudden spurt in wildlife poaching and the theft of antiques. The deeper he investigates, the more questions he is confronted with. Are all these crimes connected? This time DSP Bikram has more on his hands than he can handle because it’s not just the crime — he wants to sort out his personal life as well. The third and final book in the series, The Final Report, is an engrossing read.
PUBLISHER: Penguin Books India
PRICE: Rs 199
PAGES: 256
