Feluda
Feluda is a fictional detective and private investigator created by Indian director,writer and Oscar winner Satyajit Ray. Feluda resides at 21 Rajani Sen Road, Ballygunge, Calcutta, West Bengal, India. He first made his appearance in a Bengali children's magazine called Sandesh in 1965, under the editorialship of Ray and Subhas Mukhopadhyay. His first adventure was "Feludar Goendagiri". Feluda is one of the most impactful and renowned Bengali characters of all time.
Feluda is often accompanied by his cousin, who is also his assistant, Tapesh Ranjan Mitter, who serves as the narrator of the stories. From the sixth story, the novel Sonar Kella, the duo are joined by a popular thriller writer, Jatayu.
Feluda has had been adapted at times, with the character been played and voiced by Soumitra Chatterjee, Sabyasachi Chakrabarty, Ahmed Rubel, Shashi Kapoor, Rahul Bose, Abir Chatterjee, Parambrata Chatterjee, Tota Roy Chowdhury, Santu Mukherjee and Indraneil Sengupta. Satyajit Ray directed two Feluda movies — Sonar Kella and Joi Baba Felunath. Sandip Ray made a new Feluda film series on Feluda's adventures which started from Baksho Rahashya. In this series he made ten TV films and six theatrical films in Bengali on the character. Sandip Ray also made a stand-alone Feluda film Badshahi Angti which was intended to be the first film of a reboot series featuring Abir Chatterjee, but the projects were ultimately shelved and Sandip Ray revived his original film series starring Sabyasachi Chakrabarty. On 23 December 2022, Hatyapuri was released under the banner of Shadow Films. This was the reboot to the previous Feluda film series. The film was directed by Sandip Ray and starred Indraneil Sengupta as Feluda alongside Ayush Das and Abhijit Guha as Topshe and Jatayu respectively. Within a year and a half, Nayan Rahasya was released in May 2024, produced by Surinder Films. Indraneil Sengupta, Ayush Das and Abhijit Guha reprise the role of Feluda, Topshe and Jatayu respectively.
Character development
Inspiration from Sherlock Holmes
Satyajit Ray had deep interests in crime fiction and he read all of Sherlock Holmes fictions in his school days. And when Ray himself started writing on crime fictions, unsurprisingly, the character Sherlock Holmes inspired his writings. Feluda's character resembles Sherlock Holmes and Tapesh/Topshe's character resembles Dr Watson. In the stories of Feluda, he is displayed as a big admirer of Sherlock Holmes which he mentions multiple times. In Kailash Choudhury'r Pathar he praises the way Holmes used to draw large conclusions from observations. In Londone Feluda, when Feluda goes to Baker Street, he openly addresses Holmes as the "master" of all private detectives.Personality
Pradosh Chandra Mitter, popularly known by his nickname Feluda, first appeared in the eponymous Bengali short story Feludar Goyendagiri in 1965. The story, written by Satyajit Ray, was published in Sandesh, a children's periodical founded by Ray's grandfather, Upendrakishore Ray Chowdhury and edited by Ray himself. In the Feluda series that followed, he was portrayed as a man of around 27 with a tall, athletic figure. Despite being a strongly built man adept in martial arts, Feluda relies mostly upon his superb analytical ability and observation skill to solve cases instead of using physical strength or weapons. He is very choosy about taking up cases and prefers cases that require cerebral effort. He possesses a.32 Colt revolver, but the weapon is used very infrequently and mostly for non-violent purposes. However, contemporary movies based on Feluda stories feature scenes of violence uncharacteristic in the literature, where Feluda demonstrates his martial art prowess. A master of disguises, Feluda is known to be an adept sleight-of-hand, and he puts these skills to use to solve multiple cases. Feluda often calls a meeting after solving the mystery, where he cajoles the culprit into admitting their crime.Personal life
In his personal life, Feluda is a common Bengali youth who has been brought up by his father's younger brother after being orphaned when he was only 9. His father, the late Joykrishna Mitra, used to teach Mathematics and Sanskrit at Dhaka Collegiate School. According to the story 'Royal Bengal Rahasya', The ancestral Home of Feluda was in Sona Dighi Village of Bikrampur Region of Dhaka. His elder Uncle was a manager of a amindari Estate in Mymensingh and a hunter. After the Partition of 1947, his family moved from Dhaka to Calcutta, living in a rented house in Tara Road. Later, they moved to 21 Rajani Sen Road. Feluda had a job in the bank before his detective career. He finds an avid listener in his cousin Tapesh. He often uses his oratory skill at the climactic scenes to cajole the culprit into confessing his crime. He is an early riser and is frequently shown starting his day with exercises and yoga.Contrary to his otherwise healthy lifestyle, Feluda enjoys smoking cigarettes and chewing betel leaves after lunch. His favourite brand of cigarettes is Charminar. He is a connoisseur of delicious food, popular music, movies, and books. He has a great appreciation for Sherlock Holmes and, according to the film/novel Tintorettor Jishu, Bruce Lee. Similar to Sherlock Holmes, he has a voracious reading habit, which add up to his enormous general knowledge. This know-how often comes handy while socialising with people and unravelling mysteries. He always reads up about a place before visiting. He says it comes in handy sometimes. He is shown to be fond of Tintin, and specially his cousin, Topshe, is a fan of Tintin. Some of the Feluda stories and films have many references of The Adventures of Tintin. He is also a huge fan of the books by Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay, Jim Corbett and Kenneth Anderson. His favourite book was "Aranyak" written by Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay. He is also shown to be fond of non-fiction books like Aku-Aku, Chariots of the Gods? and The Numerology of Dr. Matrix.
Feluda has love and respect for Lalmohan Ganguly and his fictional creation Prakhar Rudra is liked by Feluda. He also frequently points out errors and inaccuracies in Jatayu's adventure series,In the story Bombay-er Bombete, Jatayu asks Feluda to accompany him to Mumbai to help with a script he has sold to a Bollywood producer. Feluda is protective and caring about his cousin, yet he always keeps picking mistakes or humor of or from Topshe. Topshe, the narrator, greatly admires his brother and loves to be a part of his adventures. Feluda has never shown interest in any woman, and there are very few female characters in the stories or films.
Other characters
Topshe
Feluda's paternal cousin Tapesh Ranjan Mitter, who is fondly referred to as Topshe, is based on Arthur Conan Doyle's conception of Dr. John Watson. In the first couple of stories, his surname was Bose, but later it changed to Mitra. Just like the former army surgeon, Topshe is the quintessential accomplice and faithfully records each of Pradosh Mitter's exploits accurately. Topshe is a smart teenager. In the first story of Feluda series, Topshe was thirteen and a half where Feluda's age was twenty-seven, just the double of Topshe. Though Feluda often teases his young cousin, he is extremely fond and very protective of him. Feluda lives with Topshe's family. Topshe's father, Binay Mitter is the younger brother of Feluda's father, and therefore his uncle, and they all reside at 21, Rajani Sen Road, Kolkata-700029. Although there really is a 'Rajani Sen Road' in Kolkata, the house number is missing. Formerly, they all used to live in Tara road, Kolkata. Though not mentioned explicitly, Topshe is good-looking, fair, tall and handsome, as per different illustrations made by Satyajit Ray himself. During Sonar Kella, Topshe was 5'5.5" tall. But during Golokdham Rahasya, Topshe became taller and reached the height of 5'7".Detailed knowledge regarding Topshe's high school education is not available, but he used to go to school during the adventure of Sonar Kella. In the film adaptation of Sonar Kella, Topshe's mother shows her concern regarding his career and study as he spends much time solving cases with Feluda. By the time of Kailashe Kelenkari he have had his secondary examination. Just like Feluda, Topshe also used to read lot of books to enhance his knowledge. Topshe often gets his lessons from Feluda himself. In many cases, Feluda tests his deductive knowledge and he usually passes the test satisfactorily. In the movie Sonar Kella Topshe's father aptly said that Topshe is a lucky boy who got Feluda as his mentor. Topshe is fond of 'Adventures of Tintin' comic series. In the book Kailashe Kelenkari, he is found reading 'Tintin in Tibet'.
Topshe always takes an active part in Feluda's adventure. Though in most cases, he follows Feluda's instructions or indications, there are instances where he himself gets involved into some action/investigation. To mention a few, he and Jatayu sneaks into a warehouse in 'Patan' to discover vast collection of smuggled narcotics ; finds out the stabbed body of a missing man in the woods ; replaces the pink pearl with a fake for safe-keeping. The last incident impressed Feluda as well. However, all these activities mainly comes in the latter part of the series. He also interrogated the suspects in Apsara Theaterer Mamla when Feluda was sick and bedridden. Feluda solved the case just from the report of that interrogation.
In movies and TV films the character of Feluda has been played by Soumitra Chatterjee, Shashi Kapoor, Sabyasachi Chakrabarty and recently Abir Chatterjee, while Topshe has been played by Siddartha Chatterjee, Alankar Joshi, Saswata Chatterjee, Parambrata Chattopadhyay and Saheb Bhattacharya over the years. In Sandip Ray's 2014 film Badshahi Angti, actor Sourav Das played the role.
In Srijit Mukherjee's Webseries, Topshe was played by Kalpan Mitra and Feluda was played by Tota Roy Chowdhury. In Arindam Sil's Webseries, Feluda was played by Parambrata Chattopadhyay and Topshe by Rwitobroto Mukherjee.