Parambrata Chattopadhyay is the latest actor to play the Oscar-winning Indian master Satyajit Ray’s detective Prodosh Chandra Mitter AKA Feluda in the series “Shabash Feluda” from streamer ZEE5 Global.
Feluda first appeared in the Ray family’s Bengali-language magazine Sandesh in 1965. Ray directed two Feluda films, “The Golden Fortress” (1974) and “The Elephant God” (1978), in which the Bengali detective was played by his permanent employee Soumitra. Chatterjee. Feluda has subsequently been played by a range of Indian actors including Shashi Kapoor, Abir Chatterjee, Tota Roy Chowdhury, Indraneil Sengupta and Bangladeshi Ahmed Rubel.
The detective is part of the fabric of growing up in West Bengal and Bangladesh, similar to what Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple were in the west for generations.
Chattopadhyay first portrayed the detective in 2017 for the series “Feluda” for Bangladesh’s Bioscopelive which he directed and also played Feluda. “It was a very radical interpretation of a classic piece of literature,” Chattopadhyay said Variety.
The 2017 “Feluda” was a modestly budget affair and Chattopadhyay was looking to reimagine the detective “with a little bit more resources, with a little bit more bandwidth,” he said. The opportunity presented itself in the form of ZEE5 Global, budgeting each episode of “Shabash Feluda” at what took the entire eight-episode “Feluda” series.
“The interpretation in the current scenario was a little less radical than what we did [earlier], because the platform and we both thought, let’s try a middle ground,” Chattopadhyay said. “Shabash Feluda” is directed by Arindam Sil, who has done several films with the other great Bengali detective Byomkesh Bakshi, made by Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay. It is produced by Chattopadhyay and Aritra Sen for Roadshow Films and Ashok and Himanshu Dhanuka for Eskay Movies.
In the Feluda stories, the detective is usually accompanied by his cousin and assistant Tapesh Ranjan Mitter, known as Topshe. Chattopadhyay previously played Topshe in three Feluda films. “While playing Topshe in those three movies, I tried to imagine what Feluda could be like for the new generation. This was an attempt to show that,” Chattopadhyay said.
Given the character’s history and immense popularity, playing Feluda comes pre-loaded with the baggage of huge expectations and Chattopadhyay says “the audience became completely polarized into two halves.”
“On the one hand, there was a lot of appreciation. On the other hand, there was also a lot of resistance. And we were all prepared – Feluda is one of those rare icons or heroes that the Bengalis have been given since independence. They identify with him a lot, they want to see themselves succeed through Feluda,” Chattopadhyay said. “The backlash that happened actually made the series very popular in the sense that people started watching it in large numbers, which was great. Many of them said really, really bad things about it. Many of them said great things about it. But the fact was that there was an incredible amount of involvement. And that’s all we wanted.”
The series was always intended to run over several seasons and the huge success of the first one means the plan remains intact.
Meanwhile, Chattopadhyay, who has over 100 film and TV credits, including his national breakthrough role in ‘Kahaani’, has a busy schedule ahead of him. He has completed the shooting of Season 2 of Prime Video’s thriller series “Mumbai Diaries” and detective drama “PI Meena”. In addition, there is a social drama comedy film “Avasthi vs Avasthi”, which he also just completed, and another film, the supernatural thriller “Walker House”, is nearing completion.
Chattopadhyay is also producing and directing a supernatural horror series, currently titled ‘Parnashabarir Shaap’. Later this week, he will begin an acting role in Kaushik Ganguly’s social satire ‘Asukh Bishukh’.
In 2013, Chattopadhyay had directed and starred in the hit comedy “Hawa Bodol” and plans to shoot a sequel in August or September. Season 2 of the popular Netflix thriller series “Aranyak” will enter production at the end of this year. “Matsa Sudha”, a series for ZEE5 Global is on the agenda, as well as two more indie films as a director.
“Shabash Feluda” is now streaming on ZEE5 Global.