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EVERGREEN GIANT

Ray's cerebral sleuth Felu da continues to to be the most sought-after detective in fiction after all these years. India Today's Sumit Mitra does his own bit of investigation to explain why.

The better detectives of literature survive a lot, not only by braving the villain's stray bullet or the poison dart but by being remembered over the generations. Like Sherlock Holmes or even Miss Marple. In Bengal, Felu da, the cerebral sleuth of Satyajit Ray, who'd long since overtaken in popularity the giants of serious fiction, be it Devdas or Gora, now seems striding ahead of his traditional rival in crime detection, Byomkesh Bakshi of Sharadindu Bannerjee. Felu began his exploits in the 1960s, three decades after Byomkesh. Both have shown the qualities of a lasting icon, with their readers growing despite their masters' death. But now it is the younger investigator who's grabbing more of the willing wallets.

If the sales at the stall of Ananda Publishers, which has got all the 55 Ray titles including the Felu stories as well as the Bannerjee stories, at the current 28th Kolkata Book Fair is an indication, the five volumes of Felu are outselling the three volumes of Byomkesh at least three to one. The publisher is naturally hesitant to distinguish between its two aces. But Subir Mitra, managing director, admits that "Ray is our best seller" and "Felu da is the most popular of Ray's creations". The early Felu classics, like 'Imperial Ring' (Badshahi Angti), or 'The Trouble at Gangtok' (Gangtoke Gandagol) appeared ago as stand-alone books.

At least five of these volumes have sold 100,000 copies. But now Ananda Publishers have collected the stories somewhat thematically-like Felu in the Hills, Felu in Calcutta--and the result is a smash, with each of the five volumes selling over 5,000 copies annually. In comparison, Byomkesh has slowed down, with around 1,500 copies of each of the first three volumes of 'Sharadindu Omnibus' that depict the detective of the same cerebral kind, though of a bygone era.

It is not correct to assume though that Byomkesh has wilted due to age. Bannerjee created the urbane, smart and witty character against the backdrop of pre-War Kolkota, and through two post-Independence decades, when the city was still draped in the remnants of its old world charm and the society wasn't bereft yet of larger-than-life characters, however villainous or monster-like they might be. Filmmaker Basu Chatterjee's Hindi television serial on the Byomkesh stories, made in the 1990s with Rajit Kapoor as the central character, was a runaway success. Be it in defeating in a battle of wits a rogue sculptor who'd lodged a priceless diamond in a plaster of Paris Nataraj, or in busting a female Mrs Doubtfire who's a killer, Byomkesh radiates the Holmes-like quality of putting attitude ahead of age. "It is Byomkesh's sense of humor that makes him ageless," Chatterjee says.

So is Felu, but he seems to have worn better because Ray had lent into these stories an altogether new dimension: boyish romance. The Ray stories are mostly of women. His wife, Bijaya, has written: "Manik (Satyajit) had to face questions for not having women characters in his writings. He used to say, this is our tradition and my father (poet Sukumar Ray) and grandfather (story writer and printer Upendra Kishore Roy Chodhury) wrote like that".

But the Felu stories offer crime detection as a lacing in a rich brew of intellectual adventures-be it in the stolen work of a Renaissance painter, or in the tale of reincarnation of a boy about his past life in the golden sands of Jaisalmer. Adding zing to the Felu adventures is his young Dr Watson, Topshe, and the untiring chronicler, Lalmohan, whose trademark observation, on most problems nearing solution, has two words: highly suspicious.

Ray remains the towering figure of Indian cinema, like Kurusawa of Japan or Spielberg, as it now seems, of America, but his Felu stories have annexed a niche that can be the envy of any Indian story writer. "Who has worn better, Conan Doyle or Meredith"?, George Orwell asked in an article called 'Good Bad Books'. By the same token, Felu has transcended the heroes of Prem Chand, Sharatchandra and Tagore.

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