Part Three
‘Feluda Is an Out-and-out Entertainer, which Byomkesh Is Not’
Boria Majumdar in Conversation with Soumitra Chatterjee
It is a damp, rainy morning in Kolkata and I am a tad worried I will not be able to make it in time for my meeting, thanks to all the waterlogging. Utterly inappropriate, because Feluda is a stickler for time. My destination isn’t 21 Rajani Sen Road, Feluda’s house, but Golf Green, where the legendary Soumitra Chatterjee, the first and still the most iconic Feluda, now lives. At close to seventy-six, Chatterjee remains the true Feluda for the discerning fan. Feluda doesn’t like small talk, and that is what I am prepared for. When Soumitra Chatterjee answers the bell, I feel every bit like a client seeking justice at Feluda’s door. I am there, after all, to request him to unravel what it was like to play Feluda, to be the man who had become Bengal’s most loved icon.
In front of me is the man for whom Satyajit Ray was forced to change the illustrations in the Feluda stories. Such was Soumitra’s acceptance that, in the aftermath of Sonar Kella’s release in 1974, young boys and girls would start shouting ‘Feluda, Feluda, Feluda’. Interestingly, Chatterjee did not like this adulation. If anything, it rather frustrated him. For him, it was a sign that his other work was not being taken seriously. Apu and Gangacharan, he thought, were losing out to Feluda. Nor did he like the fact that Feluda could ever be plump or middle-aged, one of the reasons why he stopped playing the character when Satyajit Ray’s son, Sandip, decided to carry the franchise forward. A man of strong opinions, Chatterjee opens up about his engagement with Feluda in what turns out to be a rather long adda.
Where do you locate Feluda in your oeuvre?
To tell you the truth, Felu came to me exactly the way he did in the life of most Bengalis. I had become a fan of Manik-da’s detective soon after the publication of Badshahi Angti. The pre– Badshahi Angti stories, I feel, were rather simple, and no one could have imagined Felu would become the icon that he did in the years to come. But of course, I had never imagined that I would be the one to play the character on screen. When Manik-da first called me to say I would play Felu in Sonar Kella, I was thrilled. Felu had an appeal that cut across all age groups despite being a series written primarily for teenagers. I still find it difficult to believe how all Bengalis between eight and eighty had begun to love Felu. At the time Sonar Kella was shot, my own children were teenagers and it meant I could finally do something as an actor that they could enjoy. This was a matter of deep personal satisfaction. The nature of the Bengali film industry was such that I hardly got an opportunity to do something for my children, and Feluda was a rare exception in that sense.
I must confess that I had never imagined Felu would become a cult almost overnight after Sonar Kella’s release in 1974. The film was such a hit that every time I went out of the house, boys and girls would scream ‘Feluda, Feluda’ the moment they spotted me. After a point, this overwhelming adulation began to frustrate me a little. I had a feeling that my other work, Apu in Apur Sansar or Gangacharan in Ashani Sanket, for example, characters which were as close to me as Felu, were being ignored by the viewers. I started to ask myself if I would be remembered only as Feluda. It was only later that I managed to convince myself saying this wasn’t a problem after all. Even if one person remembered me as Feluda, I should feel satisfied and proud. In a way, Feluda did make me universally acceptable across Bengali society.
When you were first told by Satyajit Ray that you would play Feluda in Sonar Kella, how did you prepare? Did you want to read the novel one more time, or watch other detective films? Was there any particular detective, like Holmes or Poirot, you watched or tried to draw upon?
No, I did not watch or model myself on any one detective. I was an ardent fan of Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie, and also enjoyed reading Raymond Chandler and George Simenon. But that was even before Ray started writing Feluda. I had also watched most of the Sherlock Holmes films, but my reading of detective stories or watching detective films had nothing to do with playing Feluda on screen. All I did while playing Felu was to follow the script to the best of my ability. I had already read Feluda’s adventures multiple times, and did not need to go back to them to understand Felu better. The script, I can tell you, was my bible and that’s what I used to follow.
How do you see Byomkesh and Feluda? Many say the Byomkesh stories are far more sophisticated pieces of literature. Would you agree?
Byomkesh is far more serious than Feluda. And yes, the Byomkesh stories are more nuanced than the Feluda adventures. But the singular difference between Byomkesh and Felu is that Felu is an out-and-out entertainer, while Byomkesh is not. Felu’s constituency is universal, Byomkesh’s is not. Felu can reach out to every section of society, but you need to be mature enough to appreciate Byomkesh. While both search for the truth, Felu does it in a far more accessible way and has a very different kind of romance attached to him. While I am by no means trying to suggest that Byomkesh isn’t popular – in fact at one point his popularity was equal to that of Felu’s – his reach is perhaps less than that of Feluda.
What according to you are the most endearing qualities of Feluda? What are the messages that Satyajit Ray wanted to convey through the character?
The three fundamental traits are integrity, honesty and morality. Felu is upright and honest. And the other thing, which appealed to me a great deal, is his patriotism. In both Joi Baba Felunath and Kailashe Kelenkari, Feluda’s nationalist self is evident. In Kailashe Kelenkari, he detests the fact that national treasure is being siphoned off and is even willing to investigate the case at his own expense. And one must also keep in mind that Feluda is not very rich. In fact, even when Sidhu Jyatha offers him money to travel to Ellora, Felu very politely turns him down. Again, in Felunath, he is livid because the Ganesh could have been sold off by Maganlal to a third party and had every chance of being taken out of India. While many have criticized Manik-da saying he had deliberately kept Feluda immune from the contemporary politics of the time, I’d like to point out that Felu’s nationalism and patriotism need to be studied. It is a very different kind of politics that Ray wanted Felu to engage with. Felu may have been cocooned from the leftist politics of the time, but his engagement with other key issues is no less important.
The other quality that makes Felu a very special person is his loyalty to friends. He is fully committed to Lalmohan-babu, and that’s something I thoroughly enjoyed while playing the character. Soon after the knife-throwing scene in Felunath, when the three of them are thinking back of what happened, sitting on the banks of the Ganga, Felu says what I will always regard as the best dialogue of the film. He says if he was unable to avenge what happened to Lalmohan-babu, he would leave the profession. ‘Ami hoy er badla nebo nahoy goendagiri chhere debo.’ Now these are really strong words, and unless you are deeply committed to the bond of friendship, you can’t say it with conviction.
Let me stop you here. So, when you played Feluda in Felunath, you actually started to feel what Feluda felt for Lalmohan-babu, and that actually helped you play the character better?
In hindsight, yes. I have always felt that unless you are comfortable with something, you can’t portray it well on screen. For example, if someone has never fired a revolver in his life and is suddenly asked to do so in a film, he wouldn’t be able to do justice to the scene. The way he holds the revolver, the movements of his hand and his expressions will indicate to the viewer that the actor is not comfortable with what he is doing. In my case, I had been in the National Cadet Corps for six years, and was used to horse riding and shooting. My father had a revolver and on occasions allowed me to hold it. That helped me in Sonar Kella when I had to fire my Colt .32.
Again, if I did not feel deeply about what Maganlal did to Lalmohan-babu, I would not have been able to do justice to that scene. If you see the scene, Felu sitting solemnly with a frown on his face and gazing at the Ganga, you know that here is someone who is not in the best frame of m
ind. It is his deep empathy for his friend (whom he feels he has let down) that prompts him to say he will avenge the insult or will leave the profession. This is one dialogue I will forever be proud of having said as Feluda.
How much of Satyajit Ray do you see in Feluda? Many say Feluda is largely a manifestation of his creator.
To a very large extent, this is the truth. Felu’s qualities – morality, integrity and honesty – were qualities that Manik-da was known for. The fact that Feluda is an avid reader, he loves to travel, he is 6 feet tall: this is all true of Satyajit Ray as well. Also, the locations for the stories are all places Manik-da had visited. Darjeeling was one of his favourite places and that’s where he shot the classic Kanchanjangha. Hence we get Darjeeling Jomjamat. He visited Varanasi many times and had filmed Aparajito there in 1956. That’s where the genesis of Joi Baba Felunath lies. Again, he shot Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne in Rajasthan and it was in the course of this shoot that he discovered Jaisalmer, the site of Sonar Kella.
This fascination for travel is something Feluda too is imbued with, and it is natural that he would read up extensively about the place he is travelling to. When he educates Topshe about a particular place, there is a degree of simplicity to it. That was again something Manik-da was known for. He would not speak much or try to force the issue. Rather, he would communicate things in a simple manner, in a handful of sentences. Manik-da gyan diten na. Just sahaj kore bujhiye diten. Feluda-o kakhono Topshe ke gyan dey na, bado dada hishebe sahaj kore bujhiye dey. (Satyajit Ray didn’t preach. He explained things simply. Feluda too never preached to Topshe. Rather, as his elder brother, all he would do is explain things to him in an affectionate and accessible manner.)
I even felt that the earliest illustrations of Feluda bore a striking resemblance to Manik-da. In fact, I remember a conversation during which I had mentioned to him that every time I see the illustrations, I feel it is Manik-da himself. Feluda’s height, high cheekbones, his build, all to me was Manik-da. Manik-da, however, did not agree. He said that it was commonly believed his Feluda illustrations were modelled on me. I was embarrassed.
For my part, I should tell you that many of the mannerisms that I have used in the film were modelled on Manik-da. The way I tried to speak was exactly the way Manik-da spoke. Take the iconic train scene in Sonar Kella when Jatayu first enters the film in Kanpur. Jatayu, like most Bengalis when they leave Kolkata, starts talking in Hindi and it is only when he realizes that Felu and Topshe are Bengalis that he switches to speaking in Bangla. That’s when Felu says, ‘Apni Hindi chaliye jete paren, besh lagchhe.’ (You can continue in Hindi. I am enjoying it.) That one sentence has Manik-da written all over it. Anyone who knew Manik-da well will tell you that’s how he spoke. While there was always a degree of self-confidence and sense of assurance, he was never rude or arrogant. Also, he had a very subtle sense of humour that I tried to imbibe while playing Feluda in both Sonar Kella and Joi Baba Felunath.
Let’s talk about Sonar Kella. How do you remember the classic?
Needless to say, I have very fond memories of the movie. The high point, however, has to be the entire last sequence, which was shot in a little under four hours and was a work of pure genius. I would like to talk to you at length about that a little later. But the one scene that I remember with both fondness and trepidation is the one involving the scorpion. It was a real scorpion that we had used, and that particular scene was shot in Kolkata. At the time, Kolkata was reeling from power cuts and I remember that, just when the scene was about to be shot, the power went off. The scorpion had been put on the bed next to me and in the dark I had no idea where it might be. Honestly speaking, I was not scared. There was very little that I could do before the lights came on. In fact, I remember thinking that if it did bite me I’d have to bear the pain, for how would we spot the scorpion in the darkness? Once the lights came on, we were all relieved to see the scorpion crawl down the side of the bed on to the floor. That’s when it was caught again and put in a bottle. This is the one scene that I can’t forget.
To return to that last sequence, I must say I was partly responsible for what Manik-da had to go through. It was winter in Jaisalmer and seriously chilly in the mornings. Besides, the fog was so heavy that we could hardly start shooting before 10 a.m. And after 4 p.m. it was impossible to shoot in the fading light. It so happened that we had to board a train for Jodhpur in the evening on the last day of the shoot and I had to take a connecting flight to Kolkata the following morning. Both Sailen Mukherjee (who played the original Dr Hajra) and I had a stage performance in Kolkata the next day. Tickets had been sold and there was no way we could miss the flight. Our schedules were such that, with just one day in hand, we had the entire last sequence to shoot. In terms of numbers, it would amount to seventy or so shots. Also, in those days, it was extremely difficult to get bulk train reservations overnight, and the size of our unit meant it was improbable. The bottom line was we needed a miracle to finish the film.
The evening before the last day, all Manik-da said was: ‘Hoye jabe.’ (It will happen.) Next morning, we had reached the shooting site early and were waiting for the light to improve, so that we could start rolling. I had not seen Manik-da as agitated as he was on that day. He was literally running from one spot to another, and shouting out instructions to unit members. Not once did he consult any papers. The other members of the unit were all confused at what he was doing. But Manik-da, who had a photographic memory, had everything organized in his head. It was just extraordinary to see him in action. He was taking shots himself, and within minutes moving to the next location. I still get goosebumps when I think that, in a little under three-and-a-half hours, we managed to film the entire last sequence of the film. It must be some sort of world record. I was from a film background and that made what was happening in front of my eyes seem all the more incredible. Even in all the haste, Manik-da never gave up his attention to detail. He would shout out the exact height in which he wanted the camera, tell us exactly what he wanted and get things done at lightning speed. When I say his attention to detail, let me give you an example to illustrate the point. This was the scene when Feluda gets the inland letter from Dr Hajra, which has Hajra written with a J. As is well known, it is the spelling that helps him nab the imposter. He understood that the man in Rajasthan was a fraud for he had signed Hazra with a Z. When Ray asked one of the unit members for the inland letter, he was handed a brand-new one. He himself wrote out the letter and that’s when he realized that the inland wasn’t stamped. ‘Stamp mere ano ni’ (you have not got it stamped), he said and was upset at this very basic mistake. No one from among the unit members said a word because they knew that Ray was unhappy and had reason to be. That’s when he asked someone for a black pen. He insisted that the pen should be a black dot pen and not blue. I was intrigued. Soon after, he started drawing the postmark on the inland letter. And in a matter of minutes he had finished the job. It had its broken edges like we often see in a postmark and, unless you were told, it was impossible to figure out that it had been drawn. Just as the shot was being taken, I was itching to find out if Manik-da had got the size right. For that’s where he could have gone wrong. To my complete surprise, when I compared the drawing to a real postmark I sensed that he had got it right to the nearest millimetre. This is testimony to his phenomenal memory, something that stood out when he was shooting the last sequence of Sonar Kella. While you and I will not even bother to see the postmark on a letter unless we want to know the date, Manik-da’s curiosity and attention to detail meant he would not only see the postmark, but it would also get etched in his memory forever.
If we move ahead to Joi Baba Felunath, were you under any kind of pressure when you played Feluda again, now that he had become Bengal’s most loved icon?
Pressure is not the right word. I was excited surely but not tense. I was determined to ensure there was continuity between the two films and had prepared myself accordingly. For a man like Feluda, who uses his ‘magajastro’
(mind) more than anything else, you need to figure out how you use your expressions to win over the viewer. In my case, I used my eyes to do a lot of the job. Not always can Feluda have a frown on his forehead. That’s why the use of the eyes. Think of the Calcutta Lodge scene in Felunath, where Feluda is trying to narrow down his list of suspects. As he paces the room with Topshe and Lalmohan-babu sitting on their respective beds, and states that Maganlal had not been able to lay his hands on the Ganesh, all he does is uses his eyes. These are the little things that I had done to Feluda as we moved from Sonar Kella to Joi Baba Felunath. The other important thing is that, in Felunath, Manik-da had given me a wig. By then my hairline had started to recede and it was essential to make sure Feluda did not age. Hence, the wig was the best call to hide my age.
Satyajit Ray and you shared a very special relationship. Tell us about the one aspect of his character that people know little about.
Manik-da hated self-pity. That’s something I had always noticed. I will give you two examples to try and explain that. In Felunath, all of us had to climb a lot of stairs because a number of scenes were filmed in the palace of the rajas of Darbhanga. From the ghat, the stairs went straight up to the gates of the palace. There is the one scene where Feluda confirms his assumption that Machhli Baba is a fraud. He sees Machhli Baba taking a bath and decides to tail him to his hideout, which is at the very top of the stairs in the palace. I was still fairly fit and had climbed up the stairs without any trouble. On reaching the top, I realized that Manik-da, who had started to experience knee trouble, was finding it very difficult to climb the steep stairs. When he finally came up, it was apparent to me that he was in serious pain. But when I asked him, all he said was, ‘Haan, hantu gulo to ar ager moto nei.’ (Ya, my knees are no longer the same.) It was clear he did not want to talk about it any further.
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