Easy Like A Sunday Morning
The past few weeks were different. Unexpected. But this article below, took me on a whirlwind tour back to my childhood looking through hazy, nostalgic glimpses of my memory. Thursdays meant TeleKids an TeleKids meant Feluda illustrated. I already feel like old typing this. Diminishing earnings from subscriptions has led Telegraph to alter its weekly supplicants, the new ones often a shadow in comparison to its earlier self.
But TeleKids was special. I learnt, laughed and explored through its coloured pages and Derek’s questions. This charminar smoking, dhoti clad Bengali bhadralok was introduced to me by my mother. Ray’s creation has amused and entertained two generations of the Bengali populace. For, my mother, Feluda is Soumitro Chatterjee and for her son, it is Sabyasachi Chakraborty. Watching one of your beloved character, brought to life by these greats is always thing to be treasured. I still remember vividly that when Gorosthaney Shabdhan (Beware at the Cemetery) was released in 2008, how impatient I was for it to come on TV (there were no cinema theaters showing Bengali films back then in Jamshedpur). When it did, almost 3 months later, how my entire family was engrossed. Jatayu’s seemingly innocent queries, Topshe’s eagerness to help his uncle to solve the mystery and ever suave, polished, all-knowing, a baritone to swoon by Pradosh C. Mitter, our very own Feluda is a treat to look out for. Feluda is almost everyone’s childhood hero. While other’s had Superman, Batman, I had Feluda. That character is something different in entirety! A voracious reader, a travel buff, sharp intellect and wit and a martial art aficionado (the first two points could have been done away with as being quintessential urban Bengali traits) . He is our very own Sherlock Holmes.
My mother always rues the fact that I cannot read Bengali. ‘The stories are much more lively when read in Bengali’ she says. More than a decade later, I am still not proficient enough to feel confident to delve into the actual stories written by Ray. Have to do with the English translations though.
The emotions this article evoked is a welcome break from all my negativity I have been having for the past few days. After all this is over, perhaps I will find my book again and relish those stories someday soon. I am yet to meet Byomkesh Bakshi or Kakababu, the two other detectives in the Bengali literature verse. May be they are as interesting as Feluda. But Feluda, for me will always keep reminding me of some good ol’ simple days.
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