S Byomkesh Bakshi And Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes

Satyajit Ray’s Feluda, Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay's Byomkesh Bakshi and Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes

Introduction:

In western countries, many prominent detective fictional characters like Dupin, Poirot, Sherlock have been created. Among all these detectives, Sir Arthur Canon Doyle's fictional creation, Sherlock Holmes , a consultant detective, remains one of the most prominent detective characters sketched of all time. This character has not only managed to withstand all the criticism and adaptations but also inspired other narrator to create such character in the future. Some characters have also been created who is influenced by the characteristics of Sherlock. Satyajit Ray's Prodosh C. Mitter who is known as Feluda and Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay's Byomkesh Bakshi are good examples of such characters but the question is how these Indian narrators have been influenced by western mystery and crime fiction? The answer is “colonization effect.”

Feluda and Sherlock Holmes

Sir Arthur Canon Doyle had not expected that his work of creating his fictional character would be highly praised by the people of 19th century. Similarly Satyajit Ray's expectation was also same as Sir Arthur Cannon Doyle. In his own words, “When I wrote my first Feluda story, I had scarcely imagined he would prove so popular that I would be forced to write a Feluda novel every year.”

Both Satyajit Ray and Arthur Cannon Doyle have used very easy language in there stories which can be easily understand by masses. This may be one of the reasons of success of there stories.

The two characters, Feluda and Sherlock, have different time frames of their existence but both of them belong to same genre. Feluda and Sherlock, does not belong to same geographical...

... middle of paper ...

...e appeared over thirty stories.He takes help in solving crime from one of his friend who is known as Boswell, who is represented as a great observer. He is also assisted by excellent Ajit Banerjee who is highly influenced by the character of Dr. Watson. The mysteries, in this sequence seems to be both peculiar and satisfying to reader.

Byomkesh has a lot of characteristics which are approximately similar to that of Sherlock Holmes, though with a uniquely Desi flair. Like Sherlock, he's prominent thinker,always loves to solve complex problems , he used to be happy when he finds that his less observant friend is in a little confusion, and he also uses the Cigarettes for smoking purpose. Bandyopadhyay's writing was greatly influenced by the stories of Sir Arthur Cannon Doyle, though he was also influenced by some other writers like Agatha Christie and G.K. Chesterson.