Joy Baba Felunath

I may have mentioned earlier that Ray’s works, be it film or literature, always reveal something new irrespective of the number of times these are view or read. This time as I re-read the detective classic called ‘Joy Baba Felunath’ I seem to rediscover the master’s style of penning down descriptions of nature and expressions that people make. The story starts with Lalmohanbabu peeling off a nut skin and the way it is narrated the reader won’t find any difficulty visualizing the whole. This and many more are strewn throughout the entire novel and this is one of those unique qualities of Satyajit’s writing that makes him class apart from several others.

The story is also the first in the series where Feluda meets Maganlal, one of his smartest and cunning opponents. The backdrop here is Benaras where on the occasion of a holiday tour during the Durga Puja, Feluda is introduced to the case of a stolen idol of Lord Ganesh from the house of Ambika Ghoshal, one of the oldest and respected residents of Benaras, which was not only a revered item of the household but also the adornments that gilded the idol could bring thousands, if sold. The interesting factor was five days previous to the discovery of the theft, Maganlal, a one-time classmate to Umanath, son of Ambika Ghoshal, meets his classmate and offers him a handsome amount to purchase the image. But Uma refuses. Thus one of the prime suspects in Feluda’s list was Maganlal. The case is further complicated by two other factors. The first one was the murder of Shashibabu, who used to sculpt the Durga Pratima for the Ghoshal family for years. The second one was the appearance of Machlibaba, a self-proclaimed saint from the Himalayas who assembled a vast crowd of followers in Benaras and on the day Uma and his family visited Machlibaba coincided with the day of the theft. Thus it required Feluda’s wit to find out the robber and the murderer and his nerve to fight off the threat of Maganlal. Those who have only seen the film, they may be surprised when I tell that the story not only differs from a different finish, but the actual perpetrators of the crimes are somewhat different in the written version.

Apart from the classic ending the descriptions of the different Ghats of Benaras, the famous lanes and by lanes of Kashi are also worth appreciating and the reader seem to take a short tour of Benaras with Feluda in this novel.

Nrisingha Rahasya

One of those books which I purchased long back when the Doordarshan was televising its soap version. I was school goer then but believe me, Shirshendu’s work for the young readers hadn’t lost its appeal, but had increased many folds for me at least!

The story in “Nrisingha Rahasya” starts with the disappearance of one Gayeshbabu, an apparently polite individual who possessed a weird sixth sense of reading other people’s minds. Also rumour circulated that he possessed a tail which, though was unconfirmed, but seemed to be his only virtue in the eyes of the local biology Professor Mridangababu. So with the disappearance of Gayeshbabu, he seemed to receive the greatest shock as his pursuit for the missing link in the evolution of the ape man to the human seemed to get a serious jolt. Returning to the case of the disappearance, it seemed to be jumbled up even further when the frivolous Paltu, a young man from the city, made up a false story during police interrogation. Though he was only joking to frighten the apparently fearsome police in charge, Bajranga Bose, but soon a second disappearance in the form of Paltu himself gave a new turn to the mystery. Not only the police, but the local residents were also worried about this series of disappearances and one Sumantababu, in particular, was more than concerned about the happenings. He soon started exercising and looked forward for a possible encounter with the criminals. Thus it remained to be seen whether Gayeshbabu and Paltu were ultimately recovered and the motive behind their disappearances.

Though the story did not lose the typical Shirshenduian comedy but I feel that the author seemed to go astray in certain occasions. The character of Gayeshbabu, has never been fully evolved, the mystery of Ruitan remained a mystery, the extraordinary sixth sense of Gayeshbabu never seemed to be of any use, the basis of the tail’s myth was also unexplained. In the course of the story it is positively mentioned that Mridangababu possessed something that the criminal wanted and also had taken it from him but what actually it happened to be remained unstated.

Bish

While roaming across cyber space in search of e-books, I’d stumbled upon murchona.com and seemed to strike gold at this remarkable site that features variety of books only to be freely downloaded by the eager readers. The next few days saw me glued to the site fervently downloading them one by one without paying heed to what I was downloading. This had continued until very recently when I sat down to go through them one by one. Bish was one of the Suchitra Bhattacharyya mystery stories featuring her sleuth Mitin that I’d picked from the site.

The story starts with a Mrs. Labanya Majumder, a 45 year old who seeks Mitin’s help from a possible slow poisoning that she thinks her husband is employing to get rid of her. But Mitin fails to find a motive for it and thinks that Labanya is just some woman in the verge of a nervous breakdown. To soothe down the woman she advises her to have her blood checked. But alas, Mitin’s theory is shattered when within days Labanya was found dead by the administration of poison. Now she has to find the murderer as well as the motive and a fantastic finish awaits the readers.

Though the plot is good but the story is quite short and I felt a slightly longer version was due for the correct evolution of the plot.