This story is from December 13, 2014

Return of the truth seeker

Filmmaker Anjan Dutt explains why Byomkesh is more than a sleuth: he’s the Bengali bhadralok — cerebral, mild-mannered... one of a dying kind
Return of the truth seeker
What makes you revisit Byomkesh Bakshi? One of the biggest drawing factors of Byomkesh is his innate goodness. The time has come to reassert those people who speak the truth, fight for the truth and defend the truth. The Bengalis I grew up with were wise and honest, with a straight smile and straight backbone. They were not rich but spent their hard-earned money on books.
There has been a drastic erosion of this breed. Now it has boiled down to Bengali smart alecs. ‘Satyanneshi’ Byomkesh represents that breed of ‘Bangali bhadralok’. This is the reason I keep revisiting Byomkesh. We were never sharpshooting business guys, neither aspired to be so. Our ambitions were cerebral. Byomkesh is the ideal reference to that school of thought.
Your focus seems to be on Byomkesh the family man. Did you ever mull making a film on the earlier stories of the canon? Byomkesh is the rare detective who has a family life. I can’t think of any famous detective — except Nick Carter — who had a wife. I don’t want to see an unmarried Byomkesh, during his initial days of struggle. For me, there is no going back to the pre-Satyabati days; I’m just not interested. This film shows a lot of family life. There is quarrelling and bickering. Byomkesh doesn’t have the luxury of silence, which Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot had. While arguing with his wife, he suddenly has a brainwave. That’s the fun of Saradindu Bandyopadhyay.
Here, you’ve placed Byomkesh in 1969. Have you ever considered putting him in the 2014 context? Some storylines you just can’t tweak. If Byomkesh is placed in today’s context, he needs a gun, a car — his vulnerability vanishes. If I give him a 3G-enabled smartphone, the struggle for information is heavily diminished. In the context of Feluda, the character of Sidhujyatha is redundant if the super sleuth starts Googling. But it’s noteworthy that while a search engine provides information, Sidhujyatha provides knowledge. Trains, circuit houses — integral to so many Feluda stories — would be invalid.
Feluda does use a cellphone now… Considering he is a 1970s character, it still works. But modernizing a plot will mean Helmut [of ‘Gangtoke Gondogol’] wouldn’t be able to comment: “Nice day for colour”. Digital cameras have replaced that era of film cameras. Sandip is old-school, just like me, so despite tweaking some external details, Feluda still goes to New Market and not a swanky shopping mall. He has balanced this difficult task and I salute his effort.
Talking of tweaking, Ajit is mentioned just once in the original story — in the opening paragraph, and doesn’t appear in the narrative — yet you have Saswata Chatterjee playing the role… I have consistently maintained Ajit as the narrator. Saradindu did not keep the role of Ajit consistent. But then, he wasn’t thinking cinematically. I have included Ajit in this story for a sense of fulfilment. We have tried something here: the audience is looking through Byomkesh’s eyes and often, when speaking to Byomkesh, the characters speak directly to the camera. The audience is in Byomkesh’s seat in such scenes. Ajit gives us the perspective. His role has been expanded and there are voiceovers. Ajit is not a Jatayu here. He is not the comic relief.

You seem to be at pains to dispel notions that Byomkesh had followed in Holmes’s footsteps… I don’t believe Holmes has overwhelmingly inspired Byomkesh. If that were so, Saradindu would have made him a lot more knowledgeable. Byomkesh is not a superhero; he goes through the grind. He has to travel, even to Delhi in this case, to verify facts. Byomkesh makes you feel even you could be him if you put your heart and mind to it. There is a certain vulnerability about Byomkesh that is endearing to readers and the audience. Holmes enters a room and finds a clue just by sniffing the stale tobacco smoke in the air. In this regard, Byomkesh is more like American sleuths. He works on instincts and is not merely employed. When he found something suspicious about Prabhat (in ‘Adim Ripu’), he took him to a physician. Holmes would never have done that.
With Byomkesh hitting the small screen and more films featuring him coming up, are you concerned about overexposure? I’m not concerned with Byomkesh being overexposed. My surprise is that it took so long. I have had no reference points for the movie. Basu Chatterjee’s TV series was not a recipe for the big screen and Ray modified the ‘Chiriakhana’ plot so much that I couldn’t take it as a reference point. Why is a Jonathan Lee Miller (‘Elementary’ TV series) or a Benedict Cumberbatch (of ‘Sherlock’ fame) so successful with brand new avatars of Holmes? Because we are sick and tired of the cloak-and-dagger, and the black hats and rickety horse carriages. Guy Ritchie knows this, and he had to resort to multiple storylines and create a new plot for his movies. There has to be 20-30 more Byomkeshes before a new spin is needed. I welcome Dibakar Banerjee’s venture, as from the trailer I feel it has an international spirit with an old-school Calcutta flavour.
Does it matter that many readers already know the plot? Will the whodunit format work when the culprit is known? All crime fiction are whodunits. When Satyajit Ray wrote ‘Sonar Kella’, he wrote it like a whodunit, but while making the movie, he probably had in mind that the story was known and that the audience was aware who the culprits were. But just because I’ve read ‘A Study in Scarlet’ and know who the culprit is, would I not enjoy watching it on screen? I’ve taken a different route here, developed several subplots. So much so, you might at times even feel that the story has been changed, though that’s not the case.
You have the rights for seven Byomkesh stories. Which one is going to be the grand finale? I’ve placed the ‘Benishongar’ plot in 1969. There is political unrest. The character of Makaranda is involved in radical politics. I can stretch the Byomkesh series maximum till 1975, when the dhoti is still a garment of choice. Talks are on for the rights of ‘Banhi Patanga’, with which I want to sign off Byomkesh. Here, Byomkesh just starts wearing trousers. But I’m picking up references from many other stories, allusions to the earlier characters and incidents to build up the plot in ‘Byomkesh Phire Elo’.
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