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.