In the meantime, two other men had appeared, as if out of thin air, like Aladdin’s genie. They seized the prostrate man by his arms and hauled him to his feet. Rakhalbabu wrenched the porcupine quill out of his hand and announced, ‘Probal Gupta, you murdered three men in cold blood and attempted to murder two others. We’re taking you to the police station.’
A fortnight later, on an overcast morning, an informal tea session was taking place at Byomkesh’s house. Ajit was present and so was Satyaboti. It had been raining almost incessantly since the previous night. The rain would barely stop before starting again. The wrath of summer seemed to be abating, transformed by the rain into rivulets of love.
‘So,’ Ajit observed, ‘you sent such a wonderful singer to jail! The man is, indeed, a truly gifted singer. Did he really kill all those people?’
Satyaboti said, ‘The man was surely deranged.’
‘Probal Gupta isn’t deranged,’ Byomkesh told them. ‘But neither is he entirely normal. He came from an affluent family and the vagaries of fate had, without warning, reduced him to a state of penury. His plight had soured him. Of the seven deadly sins, two were intrinsic to his nature: Greed and envy. Compounded by his dire financial situation, these two failings were instrumental in unhinging him.’
Satyaboti pleaded, ‘Tell us everything from the very beginning. How did you deduce that Probal Gupta was the culprit?’
Byomkesh poured himself a second cup of tea and lit a cigarette. He exhaled slowly and began to speak in a leisurely manner. ‘The keyword in this tale is “porcupine quill”.
‘Had the killer been demented, our hands would be tied, for the application of logic alone would never have led us to him. But if he were not insane, then the question arose about his reasons for using porcupine quills instead of knives and daggers. There had to be a motive. What could it be?
‘Every time the assailant chose to leave the porcupine quill in the victim’s body, it was clear that he wished to create the impression that all the killings had been committed by the same man. The message conveyed was: He who had killed the beggar, had also killed the labourer and the shopkeeper. But why?
‘To me there was just one answer. Starting from the beggar to the shopkeeper, none of the three was the killer’s actual target. It had to be someone else. He had committed three random murders just to confuse the police so that they would be unable to pin down a motive.
‘Then the same attempt was made on Debashish. By a stroke of luck, he had a narrow escape. But the identity of the killer remained unknown.
‘My search for Truth began at this point. It had still not been proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that Debashish was the killer’s actual target, but one could assume that there would be no more victims after the attempt on his life. From the beggar to the industrialist—it would be normal to expect the trajectory of murders to end there. Anyway, the situation certainly deserved an investigation.
‘The investigation revealed that Debashish was not particularly close to anyone other than the men who went to Nripati’s evening tea sessions. His employees at the factory were very fond of him and not even a day’s strike had ever been called by the workers there. Yet another fact had surfaced: Before her marriage, Dipa had fallen in love with someone and tried to elope with him. But the attempt had been foiled. Dipa had married Debashish soon after.
‘No one but Dipa was aware of the identity of her secret lover. Who could it be? Dipa’s family was staunchly conservative in its ways and she was not allowed to socialize with men who weren’t known to them. But when her brother’s friends dropped in for a visit, she was allowed to meet them. Her boyfriend was therefore likely to be one of her brother’s friends—either Nripati or one of the young men who frequented his place.
‘This assumption also offered a clue about a possible motive. If Dipa’s secret lover was a really vile person and devoid of a conscience, he could well be after Debashish’s life. Needless to say, a man who could commit three murders using porcupine quills had to be base and devoid of a conscience. The men who came to Nripati’s house had known Debashish for no more than a couple of months, but one of them had known him from his school days. That person was Probal Gupta. They were acquainted with each other, but not very close. If Probal Gupta was Dipa’s secret love …
‘I had weighed the others as possibilities as well. Nripati, for instance, has a mistress with whom he occasionally arranged nocturnal trysts. Sujan Mitra had been unlucky in love. The woman he loved had married someone else a year earlier. Kharga Bahadur and Kapil had no truck with women. Kharga Bahadur was not just a footballer, but a gambler as well. Kapil was a man of ideals and his mind explored the sky more freely than it did the earth.
‘But—to cut a long story short—when we searched Dipa’s parents’ house, we found an autograph book. It contained a signature belonging to just one of the participants at Nripati’s tea sessions. That man was Probal Gupta. He had written, “In the lightning radiance of your eyes, thunderous clouds flash in my heart.” The words spoke for themselves. We also came to know that Dipa was fond of music and that she had been unaware of Probal’s marital status. It was very clear from these details who had used music as bait to ensnare her.
‘One other detail cried for our attention: it was the morning after Dipa’s wedding that the beggar was found killed. The denouement is a long-drawn-out one.
‘Now, let us look at the developments from Probal’s point of view. Those who are born to poverty feel no shame in being the way they are. However, those born to wealth go through untold suffering if they suddenly lose it. Probal belonged to this breed of individuals. After his father’s death, he went through terrible financial hardships and his avaricious nature, laced with resentment over those better off than him, sank to new depths following this upheaval. He had been able to earn a decent living as a singer, but that brought little joy to his tormented soul. His life was further burdened by his marriage to a woman suffering from a terminal disease.
‘A few months ago, his wife passed away. He had, perhaps, charted out his nefarious plans for Dipa even before that happened. He had imagined that if he could get to marry the only daughter of a well-to-do family, his problems would be solved. However resolute her personality might have been, Dipa was attracted to Probal because of his association with music. They did not have too many opportunities of meeting in person, and their interactions continued over the telephone.
‘Probal had always planned to elope with Dipa and marry her. Her gesture at propriety in approaching her grandfather for his consent was mere eyewash. Probal knew the old man would not give in. But once they eloped and the marriage went through, there would be little cause for concern. Dipa’s family would not be able to disown her.
‘Dipa tried to run away from home, but she was caught red-handed and brought back. Then the arrangements for her marriage to Debashish were finalized in haste.
‘Just think of what Probal must have gone through! He might not, perhaps, have been quite so upset if Dipa were marrying someone else, but Debashish, of all people! Anger and envy added fuel to the slow fire that burned in his heart.
‘When the wedding arrangements were finalized, Probal decided he would kill Debashish and marry his widow. Dipa would be independent then and not answerable to her own family. If he married Dipa after Debashish’s demise, Debashish’s property and assets would come to him. The kingdom and the princess would be his in one sweep, for Probal knew that Debashish had no other living relatives.
‘It wouldn’t do, however, to kill Debashish straight off. When he married Dipa after her husband’s murder, all eyes would naturally be on him. He would be the prime suspect. Ruthless and devious, Probal hatched a plan to throw everyone off the scent. The theatrical sport with the porcupine quills began. Three innocent people needlessly lost their lives.
‘The Probal waited for a chance to kill Debashish. I believe he always carried a porcupine quill in his pocket—one never knew when opportunity wo
uld knock. One day, it did.
‘There was a telephone in Nripati’s house. The piano was kept near the door to that room and Probal was sitting before it. He heard Kharga Bahadur calling Debashish and arranging to meet him somewhere in the environs of Rabindra Sarobar. Probal had found the chance he was looking for. He had the porcupine quill with him. He went to the assigned spot and hid behind a tree.
‘Probal did not know that by a freak of nature Debashish’s heart was located on the right side of his chest. Dipa happened to know that but she had no idea that Probal was planning to kill Debashish and marry her. A woman’s intelligence, after all … Well, as Bankim Chandra Chatterjee had said, “Never did I see the whole, always the half of it.”
‘So, that is the story. Anything else you wish to know?’
Ajit asked, ‘Why did he try to kill you?’
Byomkesh replied, ‘I had gone to Nripati’s house that evening and remarked that if no more porcupine-quill murders took place, one could safely deduce that Debashish had been the killer’s actual target. So Probal decided to prove me wrong and divert attention from his possible involvement by killing me. In other words, he planned to kill two birds with one stone. He had no idea that I had laid the trap solely for his benefit.’
Satyaboti expelled a great sigh and exclaimed, ‘Goodness! What a ruthless man he is! Dipa can’t be blamed for any of it, though. If a normal girl is kept caged like a bird, she is bound to try and escape.’
There was a knock at the door. Byomkesh got up to answer it. ‘Debashishbabu!’ he exclaimed. ‘Do come in.’
Debashish came into the room with a rather bashful expression. Satyaboti had risen to leave, but when she heard his name called out, she looked at him curiously. Debashish looked as healthy as ever and no one could tell that he had just recovered from a close encounter with death. He joined his palms together in greeting and announced, ‘This evening, I’m hosting a little dinner at my place. I’d like all of you to join me.’
‘Oh, good,’ was Byomkesh’s response. ‘Do make yourself comfortable. So, what’s the occasion you’re celebrating?’
Debashish’s tone was rather breathless as he replied, ‘Byomkeshda, as far as I’m concerned, tonight will be my real wedding night. I’d wanted Dipa to accompany me here, but she was feeling embarrassed and refused my offer. Boudi, you must make it a point to come over to my place this evening or Dipa will not get over her self-consciousness.’
Published as ‘Shojarur Kanta’ in Bengali in 1967
Translator’s Note
To my utter delight, Udayan Mitra of Penguin Books India called me one sweltering summer morning last year and asked if I would be interested in doing a second volume of Byomkesh Bakshi stories in translation. Nothing would give me greater pleasure, I said. In 1999, on the occasion of Saradindu Bandyopadhyay’s birth centenary, Penguin had published Picture Imperfect, a collection of stories from Byomkesh’s early period that I had translated. I had been itching, ever since, to translate Chiriakhana, my favourite Byomkesh novel. Here, at last, was the chance.
It was very difficult indeed to choose just a clutch of stories for this second Byomkesh collection, but we eventually decided on ‘Chiriakhana’ (The Menagerie), ‘Monimondon’ (The Jewel Case), ‘Khuji Khuji Nari’ (The Elusive Will) and ‘Shojarur Kanta’ (The Quills of the Porcupine), none of which had been published before in translation. All these stories are from Byomkesh’s later period, and representative of the most productive phase of Saradindu Bandyopadhyay’s writing career. Saradindu wrote the first Byomkesh stories between 1932 and 1936, when he was in his thirties. In 1936 he moved to Bombay from Calcutta and became a screenwriter. In 1952, after he severed ties with the film world, he settled in Pune and concentrated on writing fiction. He revived the character of Byomkesh Bakshi with the story ‘Chitrachor’ (the last story included in Picture Imperfect) in 1952. The Menagerie takes off from where Picture Imperfect left off. ‘Chiriakhana’ was written in 1953, ‘Monimondon’ and ‘Khuji Khuji Nari’ in the late fifties and early sixties, and ‘Shojarur Kanta’, written in 1967, was one of Saradindu’s last novels.
The four stories included in this volume show Byomkesh Bakshi at the height of his investigative powers. Like Sherlock Holmes, Byomkesh is a ‘thinking detective’, preferring to work the case out in his head rather than chasing clues and suspects up and down the countryside. He is also a self-styled satyanweshi, truth-seeker, inquisitor—dedicated to revealing the whole truth and nothing but the truth, however unpalatable it might be. In both ‘Chiriakhana’ and ‘Shojarur Kanta’, Byomkesh fulfils his self-ascribed job description, scrutinizing private lives to get to the heart of the case. Byomkesh’s investigative method reveals virtually every suspect in variegated shades of three-dimensional grey; this, apart from the riveting narrative style, is one of the things that make the Byomkesh mysteries such a pleasure to read, again and again.
Byomkesh hates the tag of ‘private investigator’, but in these stories we see that his fame has spread far and wide. With changed circumstances the settings of the Byomkesh stories change too, as does their milieu. The first Byomkesh story was set in a bachelors’ mess in north Calcutta; there Byomkesh met Ajit, his friend, assistant and chronicler. The early stories were set in a distinctively Raj-era Calcutta. In the course of one of his early cases, Byomkesh met his future wife Satyaboti, and the young couple, along with Ajit, moved into a flat on Harrison Road in north Calcutta. ‘Chiriakhana’ and subsequent stories reveal Byomkesh to be a devoted husband and father. The later lot of Byomkesh stories are set in a recognizably post-Independence Calcutta; ‘Chiriakhana’ (which arises out of a post-World War II milieu) opens in the same flat on Harrison Road, but later, as the city expands and its population skyrockets, Byomkesh shifts with his family to a house in Keyatala in south Calcutta. The focus of Saradindu’s gaze on Byomkesh shifts with time as well: Ajit’s role is more that of the chronicler than of the cohort in Byomkesh’s later adventures, which are less about Byomkesh/Ajit/Satyaboti and more about the many interesting characters who come under Byomkesh’s investigative lens.
Like the world around him which he analyses, Byomkesh evolves as a fictional character too; over some forty years, we see him grow alongside the city he inhabits. This may well be one of the reasons for the lasting popularity of the Byomkesh stories in Bengal. In 1967, fourteen years after its composition, ‘Chiriakhana’ was made into an award-winning film by Satyajit Ray, starring Uttam Kumar, and brought Byomkesh Bakshi to life for a new generation. ‘Shojarur Kanta’ was made into a successful Bengali film as well. Where readers are concerned, generation after generation of Bengalis continue to discover Byomkesh afresh with delight. I hope that readers across the country will be able to share the pleasures of these stories too, now that they are available in English translation.
My thanks to everyone at Penguin who worked on this book, to the estate of Saradindu Bandyopadhyay for giving us permission to translate these stories, and to Sandip Ray for providing a rare still from Chiriakhana for the cover.
Finally, I would like to dedicate this book to Dipankar Ganguly, my husband. I discover him clutching a copy of Picture Imperfect with a guilty smile every now and then, re-reading it one more time—and I wonder who should be more flattered: Byomkesh or I?
Kolkata
Sreejata Guha
20 January 2006
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PICTURE IMPERFECT AND OTHER BYOMKESH BAKSHI MYSTERIES
Saradindu Bandyopadhyay
Translated from the Bengali by Sreejata Guha
Classic tales of crime detection featuring Byomkesh Bakshi, the master inquisitor
Written long before Satyajit Ray’s Feluda series, Saradindu Bandyopadhyay’s Byomkesh Bakshi mysteries heralded a new era in Bengali popular fiction.
Byomkesh’s world, peopled with wonderfully delineated characters and framed by a brilliantly captured pre-Independence urban milieu, is fascinating because of its contemporary flavour. I
n the first story, Byomkesh works undercover to expose an organized crime ring trafficking in drugs. In ‘The Gramophone Pin Mystery’, he must put his razor-sharp intellect to good use to unearth the pattern behind a series of bizarre roadside murders. In ‘Calamity Strikes’, the ace detective is called upon to investigate the strange and sudden death of a girl in a neighbour’s kitchen. In the next story, he has to lock horns with an old enemy who has vowed to kill him with an innocuous but deadly weapon. And in ‘Picture Imperfect’, Byomkesh unravels a complex mystery involving a stolen group photograph, an amorous couple, and an apparently unnecessary murder.
Set in the old-world Calcutta of the Raj, these stories featuring the astute investigator and his chronicler friend Ajit are still as gripping and delightful as when they first appeared.
Fiction
India Rs 200
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THE COMPLETE ADVENTURES OF FELUDA, VOLUME I
Satyajit Ray
Translated from the Bengali by Gopa Majumdar
Sixteen gripping tales of suspense and mystery featuring the master sleuth Pradosh C. Mitter, his teenaged assistant Topshe, and Jatayu, a bumbling writer of crime fiction. The locales range from Gangtok and Varanasi to Jaisalmer and Ellora, apart from Feluda’s hometown of Calcutta. The plots involve murder, intrigue and adventure, narrated in a racy, humorous style. All of this makes for enormously entertaining fare—and it is no wonder that each Feluda book has been a best-seller.
For the first time ever, the stories are arranged in chronological order, and one can trace Feluda’s development from an unknown amateur detective to a professional private investigator. This volume includes Danger in Darjeeling, The Emperor’s Ring, A Killer in Kailash, The Secret of the Cemetery. In The Royal Bengal Mystery, the unraveling of an ancient riddle results in a spine-chilling jungle encounter with a deadly man-eater; The Mystery of the Elephant God has Feluda battling the arch-criminal Maganlal Meghraj and his knife-throwing associate; while a real-life Bollywood villain throws down the gauntlet in The Bandits of Bombay.
Menagerie & other Byomkesh Bakshi Mysteries Page 32