‘Detective Byomkesh Bakshy’ is Dibakar’s personal take on the sleuth: Sushant Singh Rajput

‘Detective Byomkesh Bakshy!’ is based on the stories by writer Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay.

Sushant Singh Rajput has joined the long list of people, who have portrayed Byomkesh Bakshi on-screen, but the actor says his upcoming movie is director Dibakar Banerjee’s personal take on the famous fictional detective from Bengali literature.

‘Detective Byomkesh Bakshy!’ is based on the stories by writer Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay. The 29-year-old actor said even though he may be the 75th Byomkesh, he never had any doubts about the project because it is a complete new take on the sleuth.

“There are so many TV shows and films about Byomkesh… I am probably the 75th Byomkesh. So, we have the essence of the story in our film but it is a very personal take of Dibakar. Even though it is something that has been done so many times and in different ways, I never had an iota of doubt with Dibakar and Yash Raj on board,” Sushant told PTI during his visit here.

Playing a character from the 1940’s was not easy for the actor, who said that initially he had difficulties grappling with the nuances and mannerisms of Byomkesh.

“The character was in a way very distant from who I thought I was at that point of time. So, convincing myself to be Byomkesh was challenging for me. I had an idea of my own personality and got a hang of the character when I spoke to Dibakar,” he said.

Sushant will be seen in a complete Bengali babu avatar in the film donning dhotis, kurtas and commuting in trams and hand-pulled rickshaws. The actor said that the ‘Bengaliness’ of his role is limited to the dressing and mannerisms as he will not be mouthing any Bengali dialogues.

“I have done everything Bengali apart from speaking the language. I have done the mannerisms, the mindset, the food the dhotis. But you will not see me dropping Bengali words in between my sentences in the movie,” the actor said.

Dibakar said for him and producer Aditya Chopra, Sushant was always the first choice for the movie, which may have sequels.

“We needed a young rising star who was a heartthrob. We were looking for a youthful and absolutely different Byomkesh, someone who was just out of college, arrogant but full of innocence. He is a man of contrasts and at the same time has a fantastic intellect,” Dibakar said.

The director, however, said that he has taken the star quotient out of Sushant.

“This film does not have a love story, typical action scenes. We have removed Sushant’s star power, his dancing and romance. He had to begin from scratch.

“For this role, we wanted someone who has an understated and nuanced style of acting, not in your face, Bollywood style of acting. Sushant has that vulnerability, intelligence and arrogance,” Dibakar added.

“Detective Byomkesh Bakshy!” also stars Anand Tiwari and Swastika Mukherjee in principal roles.

Spent sleepless nights over ‘Byomkesh Bakshy’: Dibakar Banerjee

Bringing detective Byomkesh Bakshy alive on celluloid was Dibakar Banerjee’s childhood dream but the director says the project was scary and challenging to tackle.

A fan of Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay’s stories since the age of 13, Dibakar said he wanted ‘Detective Byomkesh Bakshy!’ to be his first project but he is glad that he took over the movie only after gaining experience but it was bewildering all the same.

“This film was different from anything that has been done or anything that I have made. We spent sleepless nights agonising over it. It was scary and a different animal and we just wanted to tame it,” Dibakar told PTI during a visit here.

“There was never a time when I did not want to make it. I knew it will happen. When you make films, you start believing in destiny a bit because no matter how hard you push it will be made when it is destined to be,” he said.

The director, known for his interesting take on contemporary issues in ‘Khosla Ka Ghosla’, ‘Oye Lucky Lucky Oye’ and ‘Shanghai’, has set the Sushant Singh Rajput-starrer in the politically volatile era of 1940s Kolkata.

Dibakar said while there were seeds of the time and space in the author’s stories that start from the ’30s and go till ’60s, he picked up the ’40s because it was the most interesting one.

“I like the vibe of Calcutta in the ’40s. It was the frontier post of the allied forces and Japan was trying to attack India through North-East to capture the port city. There was Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose and the Quit India movement. It was politically a very volatile period.

“Calcutta was under the shadow of war. It was a huge sea port for allied forces and like every war there was gangwar, drugs and weapons smuggling. Bengal famine actually happened because allied forces diverted foodgrains to Greece to feed the army. I wanted all of this for my backdrop,” the director said.

When asked whether it was difficult to put so many things in the backdrop, the director said that it evolves gradually in the movie.

“It’s the skill of the writer and director to keep the background and foreground different but to keep the relation between the two.

“What happens in ‘Byomkesh’ is that it starts as the backdrop and suddenly you realise that it was the foreground all along. Byomkesh did not know it, and when he realises it, he understands that this mystery is too big to handle for one man,” he added.

The movie, produced by Dibakar Banerjee Productions and Yash Raj Films, is set to release on April 3.

Source:: Indian Express