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Feluda, Private Investigator |
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Feluda with his cousin , Tapesh, walking in the mall in Darjeeling during their first adventure, ‘Feludar Goendagiri' |
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Felu is the nickname of Pradosh Mitter, the private investigator, whom Satyajit Ray immortalised in the 35 tales of crime fiction that he wrote. Felu's popularity in Bengal, Ray's home state, is such that it has become a household name there. |
| The global popularity of the sleuth is also enviable, as Feluda stories have been published in full in English and in part in many other major international languages. |
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Feluda jumps down from a horse carriage in the crowded street to catch an unseen scout. This version was drawn in the magazine format.
( The Royal Ring ) |
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The first story Ray published in Sandesh , the family magazine that he revived in 1961, was Banku Babur Bandhu, a sci-fi story that he wanted to film under the title of The Alien . It remained an unmade Ray film. His son Sandip Ray later took up the story for a tele-film series. The first Feluda story, Feludar Goendagiri , appeared in Sandesh in 1965. “The story was told in the first person by Felu's Watson --- his fourteen-year-old cousin Tapesh,” wrote Ray. “The suffix "da" (short for "dada") means an elder brother,” he explained.
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Tapesh drags Feluda away
to save him from a rock falling from the Himalayas.
( Trouble in Gangtok )
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Feluda proved a hit on his debut appearance. The demand for more Feluda stories grew rapidly, making the author graduate soon from short stories to novelettes. “Although the Feluda stories were written for the largely teenaged readers of Sandesh , I found they were being read by parents as well,” wrote Ray. "Soon longer stories followed --- novelettes --- taking place in a variety of picturesque settings. …..When I wrote my first Feluda story I scarcely imagined he would prove so popular that I would be forced to write a Feluda novel every year.”
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| The charm of Ray's Feluda stories lie, among other things, in their skillful mix of mystery and humour. The latter was provided by Lalmohan Ganguly, who, in Ray's language, is a “writer of cheap, popular thrillers”, who serves “as a foil to Felu and provides dollops of humour.” |
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Feluda scrutinizes the authenticity of a typeface called ‘Garamond' printed on an envelope which was claimed to have come
from America.
( The Mystery of Golokdham ) |
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Another reason for Feluda's enduring popularity is that he looks your next-door neighbour who travels to places like the hills, sea-sides, bucolic Bengal countryside, and even to London to solve mysteries. The settings are a great attraction.
Many of the Feluda stories have been filmed, the first two by Ray himself and most of the others by his filmmaker son Sandip Ray. Sonar Kella appeared as the first Feluda film by Ray in 1974, followed four years later by his Joi Baba Felunath . |
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Feluda rinses a diamond coated in brown.
( The Mystery of the Attaché case ) |
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Sandip made his first full-length Feluda film, Bombaier Bombete , for the big screen in 2003, though he had earlier done quite a number of tele-films and TV serials on Feluda stories.
What is the mystery of the enormous popularity of the Feluda stories? The answer is probably that they all are clean, wholesome entertainment, which is a rarity in the modern world. |
“To write a whodunit while keeping in mind a young readership is not an easy task, because the stories have to be kept ‘clean',” wrote Ray." No illicit love, no crime passionel, and only a modicum of violence. I hope adult readers will bear this in mind when reading these stories.”
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Feluda, flanked by Tapesh and Jatayu, watching puzzling footsteps on the sea beach in Puri,Orissa
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