EXPLAINED: Why Anirban Chakrabarti as Eken Babu is Bangla cinema’s new heartthrob sleuth

Anirban Chakrabarti’s popular sleuth Eken Babu has returned to the Bangla big screen and the buffs are loving it. The Eken: Ruddhaswas Rajasthan, which released on Poila Boishakh, or the BengaIi New Year, is a sequel to the first film of the series that opened last year. If Chakrabarti’s police detective protagonist has endeared himself to fans over six seasons of a hit web series that started in 2018, besides two films, Eken Babu as a pop phenomenon in Bengal underlines a couple of other things, too.

First, the character and its success mark a departure from the traditional portrait of the celluloid sleuth as a dashing young man in control, unleashing action that fulfils the criteria of on-screen heroism. For, Chakrabarti as Eken Babu is imperfect in appearance and social etiquette, often generating comic relief with eccentric mannerisms in a way the ‘hero’ is not supposed to. Secondly, the film reiterates how the Bangla crime thriller — or the ‘detective film’, as Bengalis commonly refer to the genre — isn’t letting go of a Feluda hangover just yet.

Ruddhaswas Rajasthan (broadly translates to Breathless In Rajasthan) makes obvious its awe for Satyajit Ray’s Feluda right at the outset. The credits, even before announcing cast and crew, open with a card that reads an unforgettable line which every Bengali movielover would instantly recognise: “Maharaja tomaake salaam.” The line is drawn from an evergreen song in the Ray classic Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne and it means ‘Salutations, O King’, though its English translation on screen simply conveys: ‘Tribute to the Master’. The tribute factor keeps cropping up all through Ruddhaswas Rajasthan, as the film’s director Joydip Mukherjee and screenwriter Padmanabha Dasgupta cleverly weave in spin-offs of highlight sequences from Sonar Kella and Joy Baba Felunath, the original Feluda films that Ray had directed. It is a smart trick to scatter the Feluda influences all through the screenplay, because the idea instantly engages the audience.

The fact is Eken Babu was always written as a cross between Feluda and his bumbling writer buddy Lal Mohan Ganguly, or Jataayu. Through the series as well as the films, Chakrabarti, a versatile actor, has impressed with the ease with which he transitions from Eken’s usually jocular mannerisms to a sudden and understated no-nonsense turn while stating something sombre. And, yes, being a police detective, he fights and shoots like a pro, too, never mind his deceptively comic persona.

Ruddhaswas Rajasthan takes Eken Babu, or police detective Ekendranath Sen, and his two young cronies of all adventures — Bapi and Promotho — on a vacation to Jaisalmer. Which gives writer Dasgupta adequate space for tribute nods to Feluda because Eken and company check into the local Circuit House where Feluda, his sidekick Topshe and Lal Mohan Babu had stayed during their Sonar Kella adventure. Eken and his friends stop for chai at Ramdevra, too, the halt popularised by the climax of the Feluda classic. Twist in the tale comes with the discovery that the Bull, a priceless terracotta figure of the Harappan Age from Kalibangan that is exhibited at the local museum, is fake — that the original artefact has been stolen. Around the same time, a Chemistry professor, Anand Gupta (Rajesh Sharma) informs Eken Babu that several other priceless figures have gone missing in the region over time. Eken Babu’s vacation naturally turns into a crime-busting mission as he sets out to expose a cross-border smuggling ring of artefact. In all this there is the stock camel chase, the sinister alleyside stabbing, or the hero’s outwitting of the villain in disguise, which bring back Feluda memories.

Despite its ‘Spot the Feluda influence’ bursts, the film by and large regales as a taut entertainer. It also underlines a couple of reasons why the rather unusual cop sleuth Eken Babu continues to click. The first is that the Bengali relish for detective dramas simply won’t go away. From Feluda and Byomkesh Bakshi to Shabor Dasgupta, Kiriti Roy and Sonada, Bengalis cannot get enough of detective stories on screen.

A look at that list of celebrated on-screen sleuths gives you a hint of the second reason why Eken Babu is a hit. Unlike Feluda, Byomkesh, Shabor, Kiriti or Sona, the characteristics that define Eken Babu do not adhere to traditional filmi heroism. He is a bald, middle-aged man who normally prefers simple kurta-pyjamas to a dapper wardrobe and his motormouth tendencies habitually and hazardously lead to foot-in-the-mouth gaffes.

The unlikely prototype of a ‘hero’ has clicked over two big screen entertainers probably because of the way in which Eken Babu was introduced to the public to begin with. The character was wisely introduced on OTT, the platform that gives greater scope for experimentation. Since his introduction as the title role protagonist in the first season of Eken Babu nearly five years ago, the character’s sleuth-next-door vibes garnered a steadily growing fan base for itself, which has subsequently worked for the films.

The transition from streaming space to films, though, was not a first such step for the character. Eken Babu was originally created by author Sujan Dasgupta as a fictional detective for a 1991 edition of the young adult magazine Anandamela, in a story titled Manhattaney Moonstone (Moonstone In Manhattan). In the printed stories of Dasgupta, Eken Babu studied criminology in the United States, though the films or the series have never highlighted that fact. Dasgupta would go on to score with several books starring his bestselling sleuth, including Dhaka Rahasyo Unmochito, Puraskar Paanch Hajaar Dollar, Khooner Aagey Khoon, Eken Babu O Keyadidi, Sankhyar Sanket, Aashol Khoonir Sandhane, Santiniketaney Oshanti and the five-part collection Eken Babu Samgra. Over the years, Manhattaney Moonstone has been adapted as a radio play, too.

Quietly, perhaps, Eken Babu has been building his legacy among buffs who dig Bangla detective adventures. The full house that the Noida multiplex screening the film drew in an afternoon show on its second Sunday seemed to testify the fact.

Vinayak Chakravorty is a critic, columnist and journalist who loves to write on popular culture.

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