India’s ‘Thinking Detective’
Purabi Panwar
THE MENAGERIE AND OTHER BYOMKESH BAKSHI MYSTERIES Saradindu Bandopadhyay. Translated by Sreejata Guha Penguin, 2007, 315 pp., 295
February 2007, volume 31, No 2

Those of us who grew up in the sixties and seventies, nurtured on Bangla literature, regarded Byomkesh Bakshi as our very own Sherlock Holmes and a very convincing and effective one at that. From the same standpoint Ajit, his assistant, emerges as an equally Dr Watson. When Saradindu Bandopadhyay started writing these stories in 1932, detective fiction was looked down upon in traditional Bangla literary circles and not accorded its due place. It is possible that even the author did not realize at that time how popular his stories would have become with the passage of time. The Hindi television serial based on some of the Byomkesh Bakshi stories and Satyajit Ray’s film Chiriakhana based on the title story of the collection under review, went a long way in taking these stories to other parts of India and maybe abroad as well.

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