Sukanya Kulkarni and Rajit Kapur in Byomkesh Bakshi. In his book ,The Bhadralok as Truth-Seeker: Towards a Social History of the Bengali Detective, Gautam Chakrabarti notes how in the early Bengali detective movies such as Hana Badi (The Haunted House, 1952) and Chupi Chupi Ashe (He Comes in Stealth, 1960),the detectives not only dress in pucca sahebi (perfect western) attire, down to their starched waistcoats, patent leather shoes and the pipes, but also mirror the mannerisms of their Anglo-European archetypes. The history of Bengali detective fiction, however, had a more conventional start in the early 20th century. A world that is inhabited by a strapping Charminar-smoking dude (Feluda), and a middle-aged physically challenged kakababu (uncle) who, ironically, hates being called a detective. In many ways, Byomkesh Bakshi is a prototypical figure of the eclectic world of Bengali detective fiction. In the sanitised world of Doordarshan’s Byomkesh Bakshi, characters were almost always one-note.īut why then is this interpretation still the country’s favourite version? More importantly, though we have had the Karamchands (1985) and the Tehkikaats (1994), why is Bymokesh Bakshi our go-to detective thriller? Though Chatterjee remains almost doggedly faithful to the novel, he ensures that the moral ambiguity that Bandyopadhyay at times tried to infuse into his characters is almost always done away with. On second and third viewing, Basu Chatterjee’s interpretation seems almost determinedly frugal. A remarkable feat considering the character has been played on screen by a galaxy of stars including Uttam Kumar, Jisshu Sengupta, Anirban Bhattacharya, Dhritiman Chatterjee and even filmmaker Sujoy Ghosh. Rajit Kapur, who attacked his role with such ebullient, cocky enthusiasm, was and still is the definitive Byomkesh Bakshi for most Indians. Comparisons that unfairly pitted the quaint charms of Basu Chatterjee-directed television series to the neo-noir leanings of the Dibakar Banerjee world. There were inevitable comparisons to the most celebrated interpretation of the character, the 1993-1997 Doordarshan version.

The dismal box office returns of the lavishly-mounted Yash Raj production showed that purists, who have devoured the Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay novels, chose to stay away from this sexed-up version of the dhoti-clad Bengali detective. Also read: Filmmaker Basu Chatterjee passes away

Byomkesh bakshi full episodes download