Sir Arthur Conan Doyle created his sleuth Sherlock Holmes without being aware that his creation will take the literary world by a whirligig of a storm. Doyle was a doctor by profession and it is believed that it was while waiting for his patients that he began to write. Holmes’ cases of deduction, as all readers round the globe know, are told through the words of his friend and chronicler, Dr. James Watson. No other detective in literary history has had such an impact upon the psyche of readers. Holmes’ nemesis Professor Moriarty – another ingenious creation of Conan Doyle – and Holmes himself meet at the Niagara Falls in Doyle’s story The Final Problem. The opening lines run thus:
“It is with a heavy heart that I take up my pen to write these the last words in which I shall ever record the singular gifts by which my friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes was distinguished…”
Needless to say, these are the words of Dr. Watson. Conan Doyle had prepared his readers to acclimatize themselves with the fatal incident in which Holmes dies. But due to immense demands from his readers – both from England and elsewhere – Conan Doyle had to bring his evergreen, debonair, pipe-mouthed super sleuth ‘back to life’. So there was The Return of Sherlock Holmes.
When we – me and my parents – visited London sometime in the latter part of the last century, we made sure that we paid a visit and a homage to this sleuth’s popular residential address: 221B, Baker Street. A whole gamut of writers, writing in the detective fiction genre, have evolved over the years. But the appeal of Sherlock Holmes is hard to ignore, even to today’s generation of readers. The residence in London, hence, has been kept just as if the character had been someone of ‘real’ flesh and blood. Thousands of writers have created sleuths or detectives on the lines of Sherlock Holmes. Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot comes to mind immediately. Poirot is remembered with as much endearing attitude as Holmes who preceded him by a few years.
In the vernacular – my mother tongue, Bengali – Satyajit Ray’s creation Feluda aka Prodosh Chandra Mitter comes very close to Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes. Like Holmes, Feluda also is a bachelor. Like Holmes, he also has his very own Boswell alias Dr. Watson, in the form and words of his own cousin brother, Tapesh Ranjan Mitter, lovingly called ‘Topshe’. Like the legendary super sleuth, Holmes who blows rings of smoke from his pipe, Feluda has his signature brand of Charminar cigarettes from which he throws up rings when immersed in thought and deep contemplation. Ray himself made two classic and cult movies out of two Feluda novels. Sonar Kella set against the sand dunes of Rajasthan and Joi Baba Felunath set against the backdrop of the holy city of Benaras or Varanasi, had Soumitra Chatterjee acting out the role of ‘Feluda’ with pomp and grandeur.
As against Dr. Watson who is – supposedly – a middle aged gentleman and a doctor by profession, Feluda’s cousin Topshe, is a very young lad. The stories and accounts of Feluda begin with the first one which Ray had written and named “Feludar Goendagiri”. Topshe, in the Bengali dialect, is the name of a fish which when fried, is a delectable food item. Such is the brilliancy of a writer that Ray nomenclatures his Feluda chronicler as ‘Topshe’. The very first Sherlock Holmes account that we, as readers, get is A Study In Scarlet (1887). BBC had prepared a very popular series on this super sleuth creation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. This used to be aired on the erstwhile Doordarshan channel on Sunday mornings in the late eighties. The super actor Jeremy Brett played the role of Holmes with aplomb. I have heard this story before. Satyajit Ray was gifted by a close friend – when the latter visited London – with the entire BBC series in an archival format. It seems even Ray was fond of this particular television production.
Even though the Grand Dame of detective fiction, Agatha Christie, created Miss Jane Marple – her woman detective living in St. Mary Mead – readers all over the globe are still fond of Hercule Poirot, the little Belgian detective with his “egg shaped head”. Even though female detectives have appeared in literature of various languages all over the world including the vernacular Bengali, it seems the perennial appeal of characters like Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot and Ray’s sleuth Feluda is, or rather has, an effect that remains in human memory long after the demise of their creator. Even Byomkesh Bakshi, the brainy detective of Saradindu Bandopadhay, still enjoys a host of readers, followers and admirers. All of us – meaning readers irrespective of the age bar – enjoy reading detective fiction. The prime reason is perhaps because it titillates, in the words of Hercule Poirot, “the little grey cells” of the human brain. When we enjoy a work of detective fiction, we often tend to forget that the genius of the writer has gone behind putting the book together.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle may well be regarded as the forerunner in this genre. His creation – the figure of Sherlock Holmes with his sharp, incisive powers of deduction – with his witty repartees “It’s but elementary, my dear Watson” – makes and places him in the high pedestal of the literary firmament. Readers who love reading detective fiction know that the appeal lies in the tightness of the plot rather than in its execution. No frills, no excess dialogues and finally, no extra descriptions make these literary works stand alone in the entire gamut of literature itself. Writers of this particular genre, are brilliant figures themselves. They need to be focused, concentrated and innovative. The only parameter of excellence is their own writing skill or acumen. They become their very own competitor in this field.
When a writer creates a character like Holmes or Poirot or Byomkesh Bakshi or Feluda, little does he or she know that a watershed is being made in the arena of fiction. These characters have withstood the test of time, standing apart from the rest because they still – yes, still – are able to bring a smile around the corners of the lips of the readers living in a world that they do, surrounded by ignominy and squalor. We live our every day lives in a kind of routine existences – buses ply, commuters jostle past each other, daily chores keep us on our toes. But the world of fiction is that spot of happiness and me time that all of us enjoy. And detective fiction in particular, keeps our minds alert and prevents them from falling into the abysmal depths of lassitude. There are mysteries all around us. Science and scientists are there to perform experiments and come out with answers. But detectives – particularly those residing in the world of literature – solve problems which appear to be ordinary and humdrum. I am not speaking about murders or heinous crimes. Something like the theft of a painting by a master of the craft or, worse, catching the forger who’d tried to make a copy or a fake of the original masterpiece, is told in a manner which keeps the readers riveted till the end of the story.
Detective fiction will never, ever get out of fashion. Detective fiction writers face challenges like coming out with a brilliant idea that’d catch the attention of readers and hold them by the noose, as it were. Long live the uphill task of writing and reading detective fiction!!