You have a Briton in Sherlock Holmes, a Belgium in Hercule Poirot, and a French in Monsieur Lecoq. But what about an Indian? Well, we have our very own detective – Mr Pradosh Chandra Mitter, a.k.a. Feluda, created by none other than Satyajit Ray. Intelligent and wise, with a dry sense of humour, he is what you would call an ideal detective.
About the Author:
Satyajit Ray (2 May 1921 – 23 April 1992) was an Indian director, screenwriter, documentary filmmaker, author, essayist, lyricist, magazine editor, illustrator, calligrapher, and music composer. Widely considered one of the greatest auteurs of film-making, Ray is celebrated for works including The Apu Trilogy (1955–1959), The Music Room (1958), The Big City (1963) and Charulata (1964).
Ray directed 36 films, including feature films, documentaries and shorts. He also authored several short stories and novels, primarily for young children and teenagers. Popular characters created by Ray include Feluda the sleuth, Professor Shonku the scientist, Tarini Khuro the storyteller, and Lalmohan Ganguly the novelist. His horror stories are also well-known.
Ray received many major awards in his career, including 36 Indian National Film Awards, a Golden Lion, a Golden Bear, 2 Silver Bears, many additional awards at international film festivals and ceremonies, and an Academy Honorary Award in 1992. In 1978, Oxford University awarded him an honorary degree. The Government of India honoured him with the Bharat Ratna, its highest civilian award, in 1992.
The Adventures of Feluda:
Anyone who knows me, knows that I am a huge fan of detective stories. And it is my firm belief that no one – at least no Indian – can claim to be a detective fiction lover unless he or she has read the Adventures of Feluda. The west has their Sherlock Holmes. We have our Feluda.
The Adventures of Feluda is a series of short stories written by the great writer and filmmaker Satyajit Ray. He created Feluda as an Indian version of Sherlock Holmes. In fact, if you observe closely, you will find many similarities between the two. For example, there are thirty-five Feluda stories, as compared to the thirty-six written by Doyle.
Feluda’s real name is Pradosh Chandra Mitter, whereas his pet-name is Felu. All the stories are chronicled by Feluda’s younger cousin, Tapesh, whome Feluda prefers to call ‘Topshe’. As Feluda is older than him, Tapesh refers to him as ‘Feluda’, which is a contraction of ‘Felu dada’. ‘Dada’, in many Indian languages including Bengali, means ‘elder brother’. The two of them are accompanied on their adventures by Lalmohan Ganguli, a bumbling author of crime fiction, who writes under the pen-name ‘Jatayu’. All the stories were originally written in Bengali and were published in the magazines ‘Sandesh’ and ‘Desh’ and have been later translated into English by Gopa Majumdar.
Feluda’s cases take the trio on various adventures not only in India, but across the world. They travel to Rajasthan in search of a ‘golden fortress’; to Tamil Nadu as bodyguards of a child prodigy; to London to trace down a client’s school-friend, a to Hong-Kong to track down an art-thief, among many others. A lot of their cases, however, take place in West-Bengal itself.
The story almost always begins at Feluda and Tapesh’s home in Kolkata. The story quickly develops from there and within a couple of pages, we are in the thick of the case. Then the story takes some time, as Feluda begins his deductions. Their end is the only part which I feel deviates from the Holmesian tradition and follows that of Hercule Poirot. For, at the end of every case, Feluda orders a gathering of all those who were involved and then pronounces his verdict.
The stories are just the right-size. Not too long, and not too short. As they were intended for reading by kids and teenagers, the cases are quite clean and do not contain any explicit content. Ray’s simple style of writing and his portrayal of characters, especially Tapesh, make them instantly relatable, more so to young readers. Ray has also incorporated some of his film-making talent into his writing. His description of people, places and things instantly create wonderful images in our minds, and we feel as if we were in that place. The stories, though fictious, often contain a lot of general knowledge. Also, in the stories, Ray has made the road just as interesting as the destination. Although there is suspense throughout, one never feels the urge of skipping everything and jumping right to the end.
It would take some time to read all thirty-five stories, each about forty to forty-five pages long. Even so, they are fully re-readable. Reading some of them even four times has not bored me. These stories are available in two omnibuses in English. You can also find movie versions of the stories on YouTube, but they are all in Bengali. I love these stories a lot and recommend it to readers of every age. It is also something I would recommend to someone who has just started reading books or wishes to develop a habit for reading.
Outro:
I have often found it a sad fact that people have always read Sherlock Holmes, or Hercule Poirot, but have never heard of Feluda. I hope you liked the review and it inspires you to read them. It is my promise you that you will enjoy it. Anyways, please consider subscribing to my blog here. Until next time, arrivederci.