It's Sunday afternoon in Kolkata, but the light is dim, much like dawn. I am sitting at a coffee shop. The shiny scarlet doors and windows of the cafe are wet after a heavy downpour. A group of teenagers are animatedly discussing the latest weekend release in Kolkata theatres, Satyanveshi (The Seeker of Truth), Rituparno Ghosh's last directorial venture based on writer Saradindu Bandyopadhay's popular Bengali crime fiction series revolving around cult detective Byomkesh Bakshi. Shows have been house-full this weekend, with serpentine queues in front of old cinema halls. Goyendas (detectives) are box office magic in this city.
"Too slow, too much background music, but a good plot" is the general consensus on the film back at the cafe. The final judgment is a thumbs down to director Sujoy Ghosh's portrayal of Byomkesh Bakshi (in what is his first role in front of the camera). "Sujoy did not get it right", says a boy in a blue t-shirt who is sitting under a cartoon of a man sporting a wide, cocksure grin, a beige jacket, a gun, and the portrait of a man with a halo tucked under his arm. This figure towers over a bunch of other characters sketched in different poses assembled around his feet. Take a closer look and you will realise the man in the jacket is Feluda, the fictional private investigator beloved to Bengalis around the globe, a creation of award-winning film director and writer Satyajit Ray. The characters are all from Feluda stories, and the portrait under Feluda's arm is that of Jishu or Jesus Christ – an obvious nudge to the story Tintoreter Jishu involving a famous painting of Christ by Italian painter Tintoretto.
Feludar Paraye Coffeer Thek ("Coffee Shop in Feluda's Neighbourhood") is the name of the cafe with a major Feluda hangover. It was started by two Bengali TV serial actors on Rajani Sen Road, the residential area of the famous detective, and the waiter tells me convincingly that his house is just around the corner. House No. 27, where the great detective lived, is of course fictional; I learn later that he hasn't read any of the Feluda stories, hence the confusion. As well as the clue-ridden drawing at the entrance, the cafe's menu sports Ray's sketches of Feluda and gang, there are several Feluda books on one solitary shelf, and some of the dishes are named after characters from the stories, like the 'Jatayu Special', a culinary ode to the nom de plume of Feluda's bumbling companion Lalmohan Ganguly. Kankrar Khutinati, a crabmeat sandwich, is the most popular item on the menu (kankra is crab and khutinati conveys digging around, spying).
It's the perfect adda (the culture of free-flowing and often heated discussions at neighbourhood corners or tea shacks on anything from Che Guevera to India's fiscal deficit) setting for a city that is in love with sleuths and has churned out perhaps the largest number of detectives of any in India. An adda about Byomkesh at a coffee shop with a Feluda theme is an idea that is bound to resonate with every Bengali who has ever flipped through the well-worn Feludas and Byomkeshes on the family bookshelves.