Sherlock Holmes’s Calcutta connection

Unarguably Sherlock Holmes is literary history’s most popular detective. It is quite unsurprising then that he had a major influence on the Bengali goyenda golpo genre. Many writers, including Satyajit Ray, were fans. In the book ‘London-e Feluda’, Ray acknowledged this when he has Feluda visit Baker Street and say,“Guru, tumi accho boley ami acchi (Guru, I’m there because of you)”. 

Hemendra Kumar Roy’s Jayanta-Manik stories were heavily inspired by the exploits of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, so much so that one of their stories ‘Netajir Choy Murti’ was the desi-fied version of the ‘ The Six Napoleons’. 

But not all Bengali goyendas are direct copies of Sherlock - for instance, while Saradindu Bandyopadhyay’s Byomkesh is certainly inspired by Conan Doyle’s classic duo (like Sherlock Holmes’s escapades were recorded by Dr. John Watson, Byomkesh’s experiences were recorded by his friend Ajit, a writer), he and his stories are distinctive.

Even today, Sherlock Holmes continues to be hugely popular in India, and particularly in Bengal - the Bengali translation of Sherlock Holmes are best sellers in their own right. In fact, a couple of years back a book called “Holmesnama” written Kaushik Mazumdar was launched became very popular as well. It is essentially a complete companion for Sherlock Holmes written in Bengali.

Holmes is not really my ‘homie’

I was introduced to Sherlock Holmes through Moby Books abridged illustrated classics. Moby Books were my introduction to the classics and were the usual reward for acing the ‘unit tests’ (i.e. scoring 20/20) that were held on Fridays.During my high school days, we also studied ‘The Hound of the Baskerville’ as prose text book. I must confess that these are the only 4 stories I have actually read. 

I remember my late Mama had the complete collection, and he and Mami used to be huge fans of the Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes series, but I never got around to reading the books. However I have recently watched most of the Jeremy Brett adaptations on iTV. It’s a pity Brett couldn’t complete all the stories as he’s very good in the first 6 seasons. Like Soumitra Chatterjee was the personification of Feluda, it is without doubt the the actor who brought Holmes to life on screen was Jeremy Brett. But I do have a gripe about the Victorian era Sherlock Holmes series in general - more about that at the backend of this this post.

I have also been a fan of the clever, slick reboot in BBC ‘Sherlock’ starring Benedict Cumberbatch but I couldn’t get through ‘Elementary’ though the premise was interesting (Sherlock Holmes in contemporary New York ably accompanied by Jane Watson players by Lucy Liu) it was just boring. 

In terms of audio stories, I find the Radio Mirchi Sunday Suspense Bengali versions outstanding. It is counter intuitive that a Bengali translation of such a classic English literary character can be gripping, but Radio Mirchi really does up the ante on the thrill quotient with its audio stories. And speaking of audio stories, I really enjoyed the Benedict Cumberbatch voiced “Sherlock Holmes: The Rediscovered Railway Mysteries and Other Stories” which were written by John Taylor.

In summary, for me Sherlock Holmes will always be my beloved Feluda’s guru. A relationship twice removed.

Sherlock’s Indian connections

It gives me an inexplicable pleasure to spot the Indian elements in the stories by famous foreign authors… perhaps it is a need for a validation of my ‘Indianess’, I’m not sure. More specifically, I like to find a Calcutta connection, if any, in Tintin, Asterix, Sherlock Holmes, James Bond, etc. (Click on this link that gives a very good overview of the Indian connections.)

While Sherlock never visited Calcutta in any of the Arthur Conan Doyle adventures, there are several Indian elements in the series. These include:

1. The doped mutton curry in ‘The Silver Blaze’
2. In ‘The Adventure of the Three Students’ one suspect is “a quiet, inscrutable fellow; as most of those Indians are”
3. The novel ‘The Sign of the Four’ has a complex plot involving service in East India Company, the 1857 Uprising, a stolen treasure, and a secret pact among four convicts and two corrupt prison guards at a prison in Andaman islands. 
4. In ‘The Crooked Man’ in the Indian Uprising (viewed as the Sepoy Mutiny by the British) of 1857 plays a pivotal role and the suspect is a British soldier who is captured by rebels and kept as a slave in Darjeeling. After escaping from their clutches he learns conjuring tricks from Punjabis before returning to Britain as a queer sideshow attraction. 
5. The only Calcutta connection in the Arthur Conan Doyle series is in ‘The Adventure of the Speckled Band’ — Doyle’s own favourite plot — the murder weapon turns out to be an extremely deadly Bengali swamp-adder trained to kill. Although quite unscientific (Bengal never exported swamp-adders to be used by Western murderers simply because there are no swamp-adders in India), the corrupting influences of colonialism loomed large: the culprit, if you recall, turns out to be a Calcutta-returned brutish British self-taught snake charmer. Illustration below from my beloved Moby Books version

It is a well-known fact that Doctor Watson, Holmes’ trusted companion and chronicler, had partaken in the Afghan campaigns. But the one remarkable journey that Holmes himself undertook in his fictional life, and which is the most fascinatingly alluring aspect of his myth, is his purported trip to India. I hear your doubts — and yes, there’s no story by Doyle that tells us of his adventures hereabouts. But clues in the compiled Sherlockiana hint at an Indian sojourn. Holmes drowned in the Reichenbach Falls in Switzerland as a result of a mortal battle with the Napoleon of crime, Professor Moriarty; this was a ruse Doyle used at a time when he felt that writing detective stories was distracting him from more important work (he was into fairies and spiritualism).

Due to the public outcry at Holmes’ death, Doyle resurrected him a few years later and upon returning to London, the detective shrugs off his absence by casually mentioning that he had disguised himself as a Norwegian who hung out with the Dalai Lama! Says Holmes, “I travelled for two years in Tibet, therefore, and amused myself by visiting Lhassa and spending some days with the head Llama.” He simply faked his own death in order to hoodwink his enemies and went on a spiritual world tour that, apparently, also took him to Mecca — which was probably something of a dream itinerary for the spiritualistic Doyle himself.

Indian writers of Holmes pastiches bring Sherlock home

Several Indian writers have taken up the challenge to rewrite Holmes’ adventures from an Indian point of view. These include:

1. Partha Basu’s ‘The Curious Case of 221B: The Secret Notebooks of John H Watson, MD’, looks at Holmes from a subaltern perspective (here Watson provides us with the real facts behind the published cases)
2. Vithal Rajan’s ‘Holmes of the Raj’ spoofs the Orientalist fiction genre. In this pastiche, Holmes is dispatched on a confidential mission to India, where he makes the acquaintance of the virtual who’s who of colonial days, including Motilal Nehru, Tagore, Aurobindo, Kipling, Ronald Ross and Madame Blavatsky
3. The prominent Tibetan freedom fighter Jamyang Norbu’s ‘The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes’, won the Crossword fiction award in 2000. It was the above mentioned Tibetan reference by the detective that inspired Norbu, who grew up in exile in India, to write his novel that contains some very evocative episodes set in Bombay about a hundred years ago. To top it all, Holmes teams up in this novel with a fictional spy from Rudyard Kipling’s novel Kim! Eventually, the clues of the case lead him to travel up to Tibet, filling in that famous gap that Doyle left open in the larger narrative.

It is through the writing of one such Indian author when Holmes finally visits Calcutta - in Vasudev Murthy’s ‘Sherlock Holmes in Japan: The Missing Years’. Murthy’s novel, like many others, takes advantage of the great hiatus between ‘The Final Problem’ and ‘The Adventure of the Empty House’. The novel has Holmes and Watson arriving in Japan by a circuitous route from Calcutta through Bangkok, Angkor Wat, Hanoi, Hong Kong and Shanghai. 

In the book written by Murthy under the pseudonym ‘Akira Yamashita’,  Holmes with help from Watson exposes Professor Moriarty’s dastardly plan of world domination. Incidentally by happy coincidence, Sebastian Moran, Moriarty’s second in command is formerly of the First Bangalore Pioneers. In Calcutta, Holmes and Watson have dinner at Debnath Chatterjee’s house. “He is modelled on Rabindranath Tagore.”, says Murthy.  Dr. Jagdish Chandra Bose also makes a cameo appearance as well. As always Watson is rather stodgy but his love of Bengali sweets makes him endearingly human.

Murthy wrote another book in the series which was set in Timbaktu. Here story tracks the travels of historic characters like Ibn Battuta and Marco Polo traversing China, India and parts of Arabia and Africa, with Sherlock Holmes thrown into the mix.

Doyle’s dodgy views of India dampened my enthusiasm for reading Holmes

I cannot end this post without discussing the difficult topic of Doyle's portrayal of India. This is one of the reasons I could not get myself to read the original works. I do not know if I am being too sensitive but personally I cannot ignore the racist undertones in Holmes. While sympathists may say it was reflective of the time and readers should see it in the context of society at the time, his portrayal of India and Indians undeniably reflects a sense of racial superiority that marked the colonialists’ relationship with their subjects. There are several clear examples that betray these beliefs and views. For instance, in his second Holmes adventure, ‘The Sign of Four’, Jonathan Small, despite being a criminal and subaltern in Britain, dehumanises his Andamanese accomplice Tonga; Small calls Tonga “hell-hound”, “little devil”, “bloodthirsty imp” and parades him at freak shows as “the black cannibal.” Both are underclass, but the sub-text is that the white-skinned Small has the right to dominate the dark-skinned Tonga. This is classic 19th -century race theory translated into fiction. Dr Watson, too, considered Tonga a mass of black -- “like a Newfoundland dog”. Read this excellent academic paper that delves more into this topic.

Vilification of Indians continues with many of his famous criminals having connections to India. Jonathan Small (‘The Sign of the Four’) lost a leg to a crocodile while swimming the Ganga; he was liberal with the whip and insults at an indigo plantation. Dr Grimesby Roylott (‘The Adventure of the Speckled Band’), who smoked Indian cigars and kept the company of gypsies was a doctor with a large practice in Calcutta; he killed his step-daughter with an adder, which the storyline suggests he was able to do because he had access to “exotic animals”. Sebastian Moran (‘The Adventure of the Empty House’), whom Holmes called the ‘second most dangerous man in London’, was a big game hunter and served in the Second Anglo-Afghan war. In short: like many of his Victorian contemporaries, Doyle seemed to believe that Englishmen who had spent time in the Orient had picked up its savage ways and returned home to civilised England as hardened criminals.

In her essay Crime and the Gothic, professor Catherine Spooner peels off other layers regarding Doyle’s views of India. Referring to ‘The Adventure of the Speckled Band’, she says, “Dr Roylott intends to kill Helen by releasing a deadly poisonous swamp adder (the snake appears to be the Indian Cobra but Doyle changed the name), brought back from India, into her room. Following Holmes’ intervention, the snake returns into Roylott’s room and strikes him instead….The snake becomes an instrument of colonial retribution, revisiting on its master not only the violence he intended against his family, but also that perpetrated on the colonial subject, both literal (Roylott beat his Indian butler to death in Calcutta, but escaped being sentenced) and symbolic (the practice of colonialism itself).” That is, colonialism extracts its price one way or the other. But which side Doyle was on is still a question.

Did Doyle redeem himself in real life, though?

Possibly. Arthur Conan Doyle was drawn to investigate just one real-life crime during his lifetime and it involved a British Indian man wrongly accused of a series of mysterious crimes in an English village in the early 20th century. The story of that Indian-origin barrister, George Edalji, has now been dug up in detail and brought to life in a new book by London-based historian-author Shrabani Basu, who chanced upon the mystery and pursued it through archival records and letters over the years. The result is ‘The Mystery of the Parsee Lawyer: Arthur Conan Doyle, George Edalji and the case of the foreigner in the English village’. 

The story revolves around several threatening letters and the distressing killing and mutilation of animals. It was one of the most famous cases of miscarriage of justice in Edwardian England which was forgotten over time. Conan Doyle, whom George Edalji had turned to for help after being jailed in 1903 for crimes he did not commit, encountered a mystery worthy of his fictional detective. The Sherlock Holmes author meticulously pieced clues together to conclude that George had been the victim of racism for being a “Hindoo” – as all Indians were referred to at the time.

“I think Indian readers will find it interesting that in 1907 Arthur Conan Doyle responded to a letter by a young Indian lawyer appealing to him for help to clear his name, and he took up the cause. Even Jawaharlal Nehru, who was an 18-year-old student at the time in Harrow School in London, got fascinated with the case and remarked that George had no doubt been targeted because he was Indian. What fascinated me was the fact that the only true crime that Arthur Conan Doyle investigated personally was to do with an Indian," said Basu (pictured above).

As the world continues to be intrigued by the ageless Sherlock Holmes, and Bengalis love for goyenda golpo remains evergreen, I am hoping some talented author will set a full Holmes story in Calcutta. Till then enjoy this pastiche by Snehajit Lahiri I found on Facebook. In this story ‘London-e Londobhondo’, Felu Mittir works with his guru on solving a crime in London. Click on the photo below to read it.

***

Sources:

1. https://www.thehindu.com/books/sherlock-holmes-afterlife-in-india-the-adventure-of-the-drowned-detective/article27330794.ece/amp/
2. https://www.hindustantimes.com/books/a-discovery-of-india-via-conan-doyle/story-FGSyS54gGN1sfGm6o9l8oI.html
3. https://www.thehindu.com/features/metroplus/the-other-me/article5145872.ece
4. https://www.freepressjournal.in/cmcm/sherlock-holmes-was-a-man-of-the-world-interested-in-absolutely-everything-vasudev-murthy
5. https://www.hindustantimes.com/books/new-book-uncovers-indian-mystery-probed-by-sherlock-holmes-author-101614487806557.html

Consultants = Detectives

Like most Bengalis, I am a self-confessed, unabashed detective fiction buff. Think Satyajit Ray’s Feluda, Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay’s Byomkesh Bakshi, Samaresh Basu’s Arjun, Sukanta Gandopadhyay's Deep Kaku and Suchitra Bhattacharya’s Mitin Mashi. These are my staple non-work reading (or more truthfully actually "listening" thanks to the scores of YouTube content creators). Click on the links to read my posts profiling them. 

While consuming their cases, a thought has been meandering in my head for a while now – are detectives and management consultants, not similar professionals? Think about it. The great Sherlock Holmes used to call himself a "consulting detective". 

As a management consultant, I thought that I was almost a private investigator of sorts. (Or maybe I was being self indulgent to justify why I was finessing a slide at 2 am in the morning for the 247th time that day!) Anyway, I do think the similarities are striking. Here’s how:

1) Both work on cases: Yes, engagements or ‘studies’ as we called them at McKinsey are called ‘cases’ in some firms! "Case study" rings a bell?

2) The client pays the bill: Both need to be hired by clients. Often solving the problem for one client drives future referral business from the same client or their acquaintances. Therefore the fundamental need to develop top-notch “client leadership”. They also need to be “trusted advisors” and often take their clients’ secrets to their grave. Discretion is a core virtue of both.

3) The methodology employed is hypothesis driven problem solving: Both professionals are Satyanweshis or "Seekers of Truth". Therefore, like all management consultants worth their salt, detectives also employ the same hypothesis driven problem solving approach to solve cases based on threading together facts. This includes doing 5 things well:

a. Starting with a sharp problem statement: The problems both solve are often nebulous and need the articulation of a sharp upfront problem statement – what are we trying to solve for here. In the case of detectives, that is hypothesising about the motive.

b. Diligent fact gathering: The magnifying glass cliché aside, both have to rely on extensive factual evidence that is often “unsexy” but necessary to the crack the problem. The gathering of data has to be systematic and efficient.

c. High quality interviewing skills:  A core part of fact gathering is interviewing clients and stakeholders. This is taught to every business analyst and junior associate as a core skill of the consultant toolkit. Same I guess for the rookie detective. The way to get your facts is to ask the right questions in the right way.

d. Ability to thread (pun intended) all the pieces of evidence: Both need to be able to have the ability to join the dots between the facts and the underlying insights they reveal to solve their respective cases.

e. Producing a "storyboard": Solving the problem is incomplete without being able to articulate the story in a precise, simple and logical manner - a "dot-dash" as we called it at McKinsey. Look up pyramid principle.

4) Collaboration is the key to success: Private investigators often need to work with police without upsetting the apple cart. They also need to rely on the police forensics team for help and tap into their broader group of friends to get information about the case they are working one. Stakeholders and experts. This is familiar to all consultants as the need to build a “stakeholder map” and have distinctive “people leadership”. And need to reach out to industry experts once in a while to "get smart" about market facts. $1000 GLG calls. 

BTW, truly successful detectives and consultants also are very influential by virtue of being connected with those in power. Think Sherlock being sought after by the government for sensitive matters. Similarly Byomkesh.

5) Cannot thrive without having excellent communication (and the penchant for drama): Both need to be great communicators often having to rely on top-down communication to help the clients understand the “so whats”. Think of the final reveal at the end of the mystery novels as the final board meeting to get sign-off on the strategy paper… and the drama that comes along with it. And the alignment meetings in secret that are required to make sure that the final big one goes per plan.

6) Requirement to systematically codify knowledge: Both need to codify cases and learning to ensure that they don’t have the reinvent the wheel each time. They can solve the next case more efficiently leveraging their earlier body of work.

7) Need to stay updated with the latest "thinking" and market trends to aid problem solving: For consultants it may lead to talking about crypto, blockchain and AI at most inopportune times. And of course digital! Ha!

8) Reliance on publishing “thought leadership” pieces to enhance own brand: The truly great detectives like the great Sherlock Holmes is said to have published many monographs on topics “the use of disguise in crime detection”, “the utilities of dogs in detective work” and the “analysis of tobacco ashes”. Consultants do the same. Just type “COVID 19” and “New Normal” in your Google Search Bar. These thought leadership pieces are essential from establishing their brands as leading lights in their respective fields.

9) Terrible work-life balance: Burning the midnight oil, downing copious amount of coffee (and other beverages), pull all-nighters on cases are common place for both professions sadly.

What do you think? A case of too much detective fiction?

BTW, if you think the above is a stretch of imagination, brace yourself for this wonderfully entertaining novel by Sameer Kamat called the "Business Doctors" where "Ivy League educated management consultant, Michael Schneider, gets hired by an unlikely client – a desperate mafia boss who wants to give a makeover to his family business that spans across gambling, drugs and porn. But the client's seductive wife and bumbling goons weren't part of the deal Michael signed up for."

Feluda comics - Part 2

I had published a post in 2012 about Feluda comics on my blog. I just found out that my post was quoted as a source in a published book titled “Mapping Textual Travels: Theory and Practice of Translation in India” authored by Mini Chandran and Suchitra Mathur. Thrilled to say the least 😀

English Feluda Comics: In my post from 2012, I had written about the English Feluda comics that were created by illustrator Tapas Guha and writer Subhadra Sengupta. Sengupta has scripted the comic series from the original in Bengali with Tapas Guha illustrating them in almost a Tintin-esque style. There were 6 titles published by Penguin (currently out of print but available on Google books and Kindle).

The same comics were originally published in Telegraph Kolkata weekly supplement for children called TeleKids over the better part of a decade in the early 2000s - the first one was in 2004 I believe. The names were different though - in TeleKids Joto Kando Kathmandu Te was called “Chaos In Kathmandu” whereas the Penguin comic album was called “A Killer In Kathmandu”. The duo of Sengupta and Guha worked on 1 title each year.

“Our aim is to introduce the new generation to the genius of Satyajit Ray by bringing his stories of Feluda, the professional detective with a super-sharp brain, in comic book form. Satyajit Ray's adventures of Feluda have been avidly read by children for years. Now this sleuth with a razor-sharp brain appears in an exciting new comic book series,” said Subhadra Sengupta at the launch of “Murder by the Sea” in 2010.

Tapas Guha gave an insight into his illustration process as, “Ray had already illustrated the character of Feluda and other prominent characters in the series, like his cousin Topshe and friend Lalmohan Ganguli. I tried to make illustrations colourful, smart and uncluttered. The style was absolutely mine. The figures were contemporary and I made the detective look young.”

Feluda, Topshe and Lalmohan Babu shed their 70s garb and language in the pages of these comic books. Sengupta explained why, “I have given him a contemporary look. His clothes are 21st century and in some of the books - which I am working on - he also uses the cellphone. His nephew, Topesh, speaks like a modern-day teenager and the language is today's. I was inspired by Satyajit Ray's son Sandip Ray's movies which had contemporised Feluda. But I did not touch the plots or the landmarks that he described in the book - though I have changed some locations to make it more visually appealing.”

Here’s how the process worked:

In TeleKids, there was an additional seventh story called “The Boy Who Knew Too Much” (Noyon Rohossho) that wasn’t published by Penguin - some panes from this comic below:

Bengali Feluda Comics: I am also a huge fan of the Bengali Feluda comics. These comics are published by Ananda Publishers every year. Half of the stories are now available in this format. The gorgeous watercolour art by Abhijit Chattopadhyay makes them a visual treat. These are typically published in Anandamela Puja Barshiki editions every year and then published as an album in February the subsequent year. 

However, I wonder if it's just me, but I think Feluda drawn on the cover of Hatyapuri (see photo below) does resemble Bollywood actor Siddharth Malhotra, isn’t it?

Apart from Anindya Chattopadhyay, I found someone else who had sketched a few pages of Kailasher Kelankari and posted it on their blog. I don't know the person's name but comments on the post seem to suggest it's Anando. What a talent! See below:

For full size, please visit the artist's blog

Amio goyenda: “Arka’r Goyendagiri”

Everyone who knows me knows that my primary reading (and these days listening to various YouTubers who fill the gap of Boju reading out to me) revolves around adolescent Bengali goyendas - Feluda, Deep Kaku, Mitin Mashi and Arjun. I was therefore pleasantly surprised to see a goyenda kahini featuring my namesake - Arka. The story is called “Arka’r Goyendagiri” by Manjil Sen. Coincidences don’t stop at having a namesake protagonist... the story kicks off near Deshapriya Park (that's c.2 mins from my childhood home in Lake Market). Now back to vacuuming and listening. 

Click on the photo to read the story or listen to it here.

Goyenda profiles: Arjun

About the author
One of the most popular novelists in the recent history of Bangla literature, Samaresh Majumdar holds a special place in the hearts of thousands of Bengali readers. Born in the idyllic district of Jalpaiguri, India in 1944 he is best known for his Animesh series of novels, the second of which won the Sahitya Akademi prize in 1984. Animesh Mitra, the protagonist of the trilogy, is one of the few literary characters that have been deeply etched into the minds of the readers. Readers have also found traces of its creator in the character, though Majumdar does not confirm it. Like Animesh, some other characters created by Majumdar such as Dipaboli of Saatkahon and detective Arjun who features in a number of novels have also earned a permanent place in readers’ hearts.

The main characters
Arjun is a fictional young detective character based in the north Bengal small town of Jalpaiguri. Samaresh Majumdar created this goyenda (investigator) / adventurer in 1983. Samaresh babu uses the enchanting north Bengal terrain as a backdrop in his novels, bases Arjun in his hometown of Jalpaiguri - this gives his detective fiction a kind of charm that is missing in most city-centric writing.

Here's Samaresh Majumdar talking about Arjun:

Arjun is intelligent and athletic but he's not the finished product i.e. a polished private investigator yet - he definitely doesn't have the gravitas of Feluda, Byomkesh or even Deep Kaku. Rather, he is unassuming and has a certain innocence about him that makes him endearing. As the series evolves, Arjun matures, very similar to Feluda but Arjun has started even younger. Arjun doesn't come from an affluent background - when he first starts off as an adventurer-detective he is unemployed looking unsuccessfully for a job having just graduated with a BA degree. Further, unlike other detective characters, Arjun has a strong relationship with his mother and neighbours like Joguda who works at a bank in Malbazaar.

Courtesy: Arko Chakraborty

Of course, Arjun doesn't have an assistant but he has a mentor named Amal Shome who is an established, senior private investigator getting on in years. Arjun and his mentor Amol Shome are distinctly different from many fictional detectives with their Himalayan hill town charm. They are a pair of self professed satya sandhanis (truth seekers). Arjun is a young adult who is the adventurer-detective hero - he is not a sidekick of the older detective. 

He is a small-town boy from North Bengal. Buying a red bike is one of the highlights of his career. There are numerous references to the era gone by such as Arjun never smokes in front of elders especially Amal Shome. However, for a small town boy with limited means, Arjun is remarkably well travelled overseas to USA (Lighter Rahasya), the UK (Jutoy Rakter Daag), and even to neighbouring Bangladesh in his adventures.

The third recurring character in the series is Major. He brings in much needed comic relief. I found Major to be very similar to Captain Haddock of Tintin series. Major is introduced in Lighter as an eccentric, cheroot smoking, globe trotting, nature loving adventurer who is also bachelor like Amal Shome. Major is related to Amal Shome’s friend, Bishnu saheb (Bishnucharan Patranabis). Major is his sister’s husband’s brother. Bishnu Saheb is from Kalimpong and features in a couple of early stories.

Habu, Amal Shome’s servant also appears as a recurring but peripheral character in several stories. Habu is deaf and dumb, but exceptionally strong. He is loyal and has a deep sense of responsibility - Amal Shome trusts Habu to look after his house in Hakimpara in Jalpaiguri when he’s away for months on end. However, Habu is a terrible cook!

What are the stories like
Arjun stories are not really goyenda golpo - they often read like adventure laden travelogues or even historical fiction. Samaresh Majumdar’s simple lucid writing make these stories a true ‘time capsule’ of life in moffusil towns in the 1990s. The stories set in the foothills of the Himalayas, especially in the forests there are my favourites including Khutimari Range and Joyontir Jongole as they seem to have the special local touch.

 

Some Arjun stories have rather outlandish premises like time travel in Arjun Beriye Elo. The range is wide: from looking for lost treasure in Kalapahar, quest for a mysterious flower with lethal smell in Phule Bisher Gondho, helping village of self-exiled Britons hidden in the hills of north Bengal get the better of middle Asian warriors in search of their reincarnated spiritual leader and in the process finding a Stegosaurus in Hisbebe Bhul Chilo, apprehending an orangutan that is trained to be a cat burglar in Salt Lake neighbourhood of Kolkata in Labonhrad Landobhando, to searching for the abominable snowman in Yetir Atiyo.

However I must say that Samaresh Babu showed wonderful futuristic vision in Arjun Beriye Elo to predict T20 cricket, video calling and self driven cars. It was wonderful serendipity to hear about T20 cricket player 174 years in the future from 1994 at Lords and being projected holographically in Jalpaiguri, while I was actually on a bus and passing Lords! Thank God, we didn’t have to wait that long to see T20 cricket as it became a reality in early 2000s! As did video calling thanks to Skype initially and later WhatsApp, and now post COVID19, Zoom. Self driving cars are not that far away with Google being amongst those who have started testing the concept.

Samaresh babu has been prolific with the Arjun series with nearly 50 stories being published since the first one in 1983. I have read that he started writing Arjun stories at the request of a person called Nirendranath Chakrabarti and the first story was published in Anadalok.

Again, like Mitin Mashi and Deep Kaku, Arjun stories were published in Pujabarshiki magazines (the annual magazines that comes out before Durga Puja) - Anandamela and sometimes in Anandalok. Most of the stories in Arjun series are also available as anthologies in 6 volumes titled Arjun Samagra:

Film and Radio adaptions
There was an excellent series of radio natok (drama) adaptations by Amit Chakraborty called 'Ami Arjun' on 91.9 Friends FM that was quite popular. They adapted around 10 stories - you can find these on YouTube by clicking the link below. It was through these stories that I got introduced to the series and discovered Arjun.

1. Ami Arjun
2. Khutimari Range
3. Khunkharapi
4. Lighter
5. Derdin
6. Rotnogorbha
7. Arjun Ebaar Kolkata e
8. Macsaheber Natni
9. Berosik
10. Arjun Hotobombho and Arjun O Aditi

Since then, several other channels have also narrated Arjun books.

The only Arjun film, ‘Kalimpong E Sitaharan’ directed by Prem Modi, had an unflattering debut in 2013. The film an adaptation of two early stories of Arjun -  stories — Khunkharapi and Kalimpongey Sitaharan.

Goyenda profiles: Mitin Mashi stories

Suchitra Bhattacharya, known mainly for her perceptive writing about the urban middle-class Indian condition, stepped into the world of detective fiction for young adults with her Mitin Mashi series.

About the author

Suchitra Bhattacharya (10 January 1950 – 2015) was a hugely popular and well respected Bengali writer, who passed away at the 65. Her writing focuses on contemporary social issues. She was a perceptive observer of the changing urban milieu and her writing closely examines the contemporary Bengali middle class. She continues to be a household name for her modern stories of family fault lines, but her woman detective is truly unique. Mitin Mashi evokes a sense of nostalgia among many as she was someone who used to be a rage in Puja Barshiki magazines. There are only a few female detective characters in Bengali literature (Mitin, Gargi, Kalabati) and Mitin Mashi is arguably the ‘Miss Marple’ of Bengal. 

The main characters

Pragyaparamita Mukherjee, who, like all good Bengalis, is known by her pet name, Mitin. Mitin lives in Dhakuria in South Kolkata, with her husband, Partho and son, Boomboom. (That makes her from our para - neighbourhood.) She works as a private detective and has her own agency called Third Eye. Her husband Partho, runs a printing press. Mitin is the 21st century, educated, confident Kolkata woman in her mid-30s – a person many of her readers know and identify with.  And like many eminent detectives, Mitin has an assistant: her niece, Oindrilla, or as she's called at home, Tupur.

Courtesy: Arko Chakraborty

Tupur is still in school. Tupur’s mother is Mitin’s elder sister. Tupur and her family live in Hatibagan in north Kolkata. Since we have an aunt and niece detective team, our detective is Mitin Mashi or Aunt Mitin. Not surprising, since Bhattacharya’s target readership comprises young adults and through Tupur’s eyes we see the world unfolding before them. This is very similar to Feluda and Topshe relationship, the difference being that they were cousins instead. Tupur and her uncle, Partho Mesho, bond over their love of food. Partho is the essential gourmand and regularly patronises Kolkata’s many eateries for their delicious, unhealthy offerings.

DC DD Asnischay Majumdar is another recurring character. A senior police officer of Kolkata Police based in Laz Bazaar who helps Mitin with vital police support helping her to solve her cases and get to the criminal. He has great respect for Mitin but often engages in friendly banter that stems from underlying healthy professional rivalry at some level. This element of a policeman helping a private investigator is a familiar theme in Bangla goyenda kahini (detective stories) with similar instances seen in Byomkesh (whom Inspector Rakhal Babu helps) and Deep Kaku stories (whom his college friend Ranjan who’s based in Lal Bazaar Control Room helps). In case of Feluda, there is no single recurring friendly police character but several police officers who help him myriad cases across the years.

Mitin Mashi is the perfect amalgamation of an edgy professional sleuth and an adept homemaker. You might find some vignettes of Agatha Christie’s Mrs Marple in her activities. She is a working mother who knows how to balancing her work inside and outside home. A lot of the balance is thanks to Aroti. We see also Aroti - an efficient, dependable worker who takes care of the household chores and looks after Boomboom but remains a peripheral character like Puntiram in Byomkesh stories, Srinath in Feluda stories and Habu in Arjun stories. 

Kolkata plays a big role in the stories. Mitin Mashi lives in “modern” Dhakuria, whereas, Tupur and her parents live in Hatibagan in north Kolkata, an older part of the city. There are frequent comings and goings between Dhakuria and Hatibagan and comments on the distinctiveness of life in the older part. There is perhaps, also, a regret for the days of yore. Mitin and Tupur also travel with their extended families and we see them on holiday in different locales – needless to say, these holidays also become the backdrop for Mitin Mashi’s search for truth.

What are the stories like
In all, there are 20 Mitin Mashi stories published - a mix of chotoder and boroder golpo. Mitin Mashi’s stories are an amalgamation of the familiar and the unfamiliar, the every day and the exotic. Through Mitin Mashi’s adventures, we are introduced to the histories and cultures of the many communities who have made Calcutta their home – the Marwaris, the Parsis, the Chinese, the Jews. But there is no wallowing in nostalgia – Mitin Mashi drives a car, uses a computer and always has her smartphone handy. However, we are often reminded by Mitin that as a detective, she is not merely interested in solving a mystery but has a higher calling of searching for the truth. Shades of Satyaneshi Byomkesh, did you say?  The tone and content of the stories are similar to Feluda than Byomkesh though, especially for the 14 chotoder golpo. The 6 boroder golpo are almost Byomkesh mashed up with urban themes archetypical to Suchitra Bhattacharya.

Chotoder golpo: Most of the stories of Mitin Mashi were published in Anandamela Pujabarshiki magazine (annual magazine Anandamela that comes out before Durga Puja). These are:

1. Saranday Shoytan (not the best version - the better version has been removed from YouTube)
2. Jonathaner Barir Bhoot (not the best version - the better version has been removed from YouTube)
3. Keralay Kistimaat
4. Sarpa Rahasya Sundarbone (not the best version - the better version has been removed from YouTube)
5. Jhao Jhiyen Hatya Rahasya
6. Chhokta Sudoku'r
7. Arakiyeler Hire
8. Guptadhaner Gujab
9. Hate Matro Tinte Din
10. Kurie Paoa Pendrive
11. Marquis Strete Mirtyufand
12. Tikorparay Gharial
13. Duswapno Barbar
14. Sanders Saheber Pnuthi

Chotoder Mitin

The Mitin Mashi books have the thrill of adventure and detection – why does Shalini have a recurrent nightmare; does the old house in Badridas Temple Street have a vast storehouse of buried treasure; will Ronnie’s kidnappers get caught; why was Rachel Joshua murdered? It is indeed exhilarating for the young Tupur to partner her aunt in such adventures. I came across Mitin Mashi stories via various YouTube channels. The first one I heard was Keralay Kistimaat - I was attracted by the setting in my sasur bari. All stories have been covered there - click on the names about for links to the best version of these stories.

Boroder goplpo: In the Mitin Mashi series, there are also 6 ‘boroder golpo’ - stories meant for adult readers. Of course, Tupur doesn’t feature in these stories. This is a distinct feature of the Mitin Mashi series compared to other popular goyenda series - Byomkesh and Kiriti are mainly targeted for adult readers whereas Feluda and Deep Kaku are mainly for young adults, even though they are universally enjoyed. The only other character (who I know of) that has featured in both young adult stories and adult stories, is Colonel Niladri Sarkar. The 6 stories for adults are:

1. Maron Batash (this was the first story adult story)
2. Bish
3. Trishna Mara Geche
4. Megher Pore Megh
5. Palabar Path Nei
6. Ekta Shudu Wrong Number

Boroder Mitin

The first time I came across a Mitin Mashi ‘boroder golpo’, it was amazing and unexpected - I had been listening to the 'chotoder golpo' thus far. It was almost as if Feluda was solving a complex Byomkesh case... think Feluda going solo and solving Admin Ripu! 

Film adaptation

The first Mitin Mashi film has already been released during Durga Puja on 2 Oct 2019. It is based on the story Hate Matro Tintey Din. Koel Mallick starred as Mitin Mashi in this screen adaptation directed by Arindam Sil. 

With no dearth of fictional detective characters to choose from the literature of Bengal, filmmaker Arindam Sil seems to have carved out a niche for himself by making as many as seven film adaptations on such characters. I am yet to see the movie and hope one of the OTT platforms stream it soon. In a Pre-Covid world, Arindam had planned to make the next film of Mitin Mashi franchise and released during Puja 2020. The second film was to be based on Keralay Kistimaat.


Sources: 1: Scroll 2: Wikipedia 3: News articles