Dibakar-Sushant launch Byomkesh in Kolkata - Page 5

BYOMKESH FROM BOLLY

The setting: Alipore's Burdwan Rajbari. The scene: A room in the 150-year-old palace has been converted for a day into the venue of the media launch of a Bollywood film. Stately chandeliers hang from the high ceilings even as waiters dressed in the clothes of a bygone era serve Bengali delicacies, Moghlai Porota to Fish Kabiraji.

If the look and feel of the launch of Dibakar Banerjee's Detective Byomkesh Bakshi is anything to go by, then our homegrown super sleuth — whose life and times have been captured on film and television through the ages — is in safe hands.

"My Byomkesh is a 22-23-year-old young man, fresh out of college, who for the first time in his life shows an interest in becoming a detective. He isn't a satyanweshi yet, but is well on his way to becoming one," said Dibakar. The man behind films like Love, Sex Aur Dhokha and Shanghai is in town for a recce of the locations for his latest project based on the Saradindu Bandopadhyay series and to be produced by Yash Raj Films.

Playing the instinctive and astute detective is former TV actor Sushant Singh Rajput, who made his film debut with the critically acclaimed Kai Po Che! in February. "I have been in Calcutta for the last five or six days, absorbing the way of life in the city. I have been studying Bengali culture… I have been visiting a lot of lanes and alleys and eating typical Bengali food just to understand what living life as a Bengali is all about," said Sushant, looking every inch the Byomkesh he aspires to be in a white-and-beige striped kurta and pyjama.

But why Sushant? "I wanted to take up the challenge to blend someone like Sushant… a youth from the 21st century, a Bollywood hunk who is the current heart-throb of this generation... into the milieu of 1942 Calcutta. What really struck me about Sushant was that he has never brought in an element of exhibitionism into his acting. His style of performance is very internal and subtle. I believe that an actor who can impress with his acting in a TV soap (Pavitra Rishta), can surprise you with anything," said Dibakar.

While Yash Raj Films and Dibakar have bought the rights to 31 Byomkesh stories, the filmmaker isn't willing to reveal which one his film is based on. "I will not reveal the story because once I do it, you will know who the villain is! We are taking Saradindu Bandopadhyay's story and reinterpreting some of the aspects, though we are retaining the essence of it," smiled Dibakar, whose last work was in the four-in-one film Bombay Talkies.

"There are two periods of Byomkesh — one in which Saradindu Bandopadhyay wrote between the '30s and the mid-'40s, went off to Bombay in the middle to become a scriptwriter and then came back to write the second lot of Byomkesh on popular demand. My film is about the earlier Byomkesh, the adventurous, young, enthusiastic, thrilling Byomkesh. This is a man who wants to pursue a profession which is a passion, a profession for which a name hasn't yet been invented. It's a Byomkesh that Saradindu Bandopadhyay wrote when he himself was young," added the Khosla Ka Ghosla man.

The "biggest challenge", Dibakar admits, will be to recreate the Calcutta of 1942, the year in which his film is set. "A Calcutta in the middle of the second World War, a Calcutta in the throes of political turmoil… a Calcutta far more innocent than today. A noir detective thriller unfolding in this period with Byomkesh trying to solve a crime far ahead of its time, is what makes the premise very romantic for me," said Dibakar.

While he isn't ready with his locations yet, Dibakar says that Detective Byomkesh Bakshi will recreate old-world Calcutta locales like Chitpur Road, the old China Town and Anglo-Indian and Armenian tenements. "We are lucky that there is quite a bit of 1942 in Calcutta even today, in its paras and its lanes and bylanes. The recreation of that period will be a mix of location, set and VFX. Through this film, I want to depict the kaleidoscopic and adventurous side of Calcutta. Eta ekta rom-romey golpo hobe (This will be a thrilling tale)," said Dibakar who pegs his latest project as his "most difficult film ever".

While Dibakar knows his Byomkesh inside out, Sushant is hardly familiar with the adventures of the Bengali sleuth. "Dibakar asked me not to read or watch anything of Byomkesh because he wanted my approach to be very fresh and free from influence. I did watch Satyajit Ray's Chiriyakhana (with Uttam Kumar as Byomkesh)," smiled Sushant, whose next release will be Shuddh Desi Romance in September, opposite Parineeti Chopra.

The rest of the cast hasn't been finalised yet, with Dibakar unwilling to reveal who he has in mind for the key roles of Byomkesh's wife Satyabati and his friend Ajit. "Saradindu Bandopadhyay is the only writer I know who has given his detective a love interest. Otherwise, the female sex has been cut off from every other detective I can recall — Sherlock Holmes to Hercule Poirot. But Byomkesh is not a James Bond who is going to be surrounded by women… that's not the person he is," said Dibakar.

But why this sudden fascination with Byomkesh — Anjan Dutt has already brought him alive in two films and a Rituparno Ghosh film on the sleuth is being completed after his demise by his core team. "In Byomkesh, you see friendship, love, lust, sacrifice…. It's a detective story, but so human and so layered. Through this film, I will fulfil my childhood dream of telling a detective story and I am standing on a high platform already because my material is so rich in origin," said Dibakar.

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