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After him, son Sandip Ray took on the mantle and but his interpretation of Bombaiyer Bombete just managed to garner a mixed response. While Ray loyalists felt that Sandip’s jazzed up Feluda film was not a patch on its brilliant predecessors — the almost lyrical Sonar Kella and the pacy Joi Baba Felunath —but many lauded Sandip’s film as of “individual merit”.
While evaluating his latest presentation Kailashey Kelenkari, Ray fans would be best advised not to use Sonar Kella and Joi Baba Felunath as yardsticks. Kailashey is a fast-paced thriller, which takes viewers across the country to unravel a nefarious nexus of temple vandalism. A disastrous plane crash takes Feluda (Sabyasachi Chakraborty), Topshe (Parambrata Chatterjee) and Lamohanbabu (Bibhu Bhattacharya) to the Ellora caves. Feluda’s multiple disguises and shady encounters with strange characters soon follow.
Though the film remains as close to the 1974 text as possible, it’s obvious that the director took some liberties to bring the film into context. The trunk calls have given way to cell phones and Feluda’s hippie identity is replaced with a staid National Geographic lensman’s.
While the modern-day Feluda seems fully in tune with the technology around him, he is still faithful to his pack of unfiltered Charminar cigarettes. Lalmohanbabu and Topshe seem to be untouched by time and are still the faithful, albeit bungling, aides of Bengal’s favourite private detective.
As Parajanya Sen, a JU student, says, “Kailashey is a trip down memory lane. While the original text’s innocence is retained, the film does not seem outdated.”
December marks Feluda’s arrival
Feluda loyalists in Kolkata will have more than one reason to cheer this month. While Satyajit Ray’s detective hero blazes the screen in Kailashe Kelenkari, December also marks his first appearance in print.
In 1965, Pradosh C Mitter, popularly known as ‘Feluda’ was first introduced, along with his cousin and sidekick Tapesh (Topshe), in the story Feludar Goyendagiri published in Sandesh. The story had a taut plot set in Darjeeling.
This was the beginning of a series of adventures with amusing novelist Lal Mohan Ganguli joining the cousins in Shonar Kella. Ganguli, who wrote under the pseudonym “Jatayu”, provided dollops of humour to complement Feluda’s sharp instincts, intellect and charismatic personality. The tremendous response to the first publication of Feludar Goyendagiri in a three-part series in Sandesh led to the publication of Ek dojon gappo, a collection of 12 stories.
In 1969, Ray penned the first full-length story by the name of Badshahi Angti, which was set in Lucknow. This was followed by more engrossing adventures like Gangtok e gandogol, Baksho Rahashya and Kailashe Kelenkari which whetted the readers’ appetite. Eminent actor Soumitra Chatterjee, who immortalised Feluda onscreen, says it was his Bangaliyana, which endeared him to the readers. “His sharp intellect was a huge draw. But that I guess is the asset of all detectives. He could carry off even a panjabi (kurta) and an aloyan (shawl) with style,” he said. —ENS
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