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170 pages

English

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An irresistible volume for crime fiction enthusiasts When, in 1932, Saradindu Bandyopadhyay decided to try his hand at detective fiction looked down upon in Bengali literary circles of that time as frivolous ventures he scarcely expected Byomkesh Bakshi to become one of the most popular and enduring creations in Bengali literature. Although largely modelled on such greats as Conan Doyle s Holmes and Chesterton s Father Brown, Byomkesh s appeal as the self-styled inquisitor, a detective not by profession but by passion, found him a dedicated following among generations of readers. The present collection of stories, all set in Calcutta of the fifties and sixties, brings together four mysteries that put the sleuth s remarkable mental agility to the ultimate test. In The Menagerie (adapted by master film-maker Satyajit Ray for his 1967 film Chiriakhana) Byomkesh cracks a strange case involving broken motor parts, a seemingly natural death and the peculiar inhabitants of Golap Colony who seem capable of doing just about anything to safeguard the secrets of their tainted pasts. In The Jewel Case he investigates the mysterious disappearance of a priceless necklace, while in The Will That Vanished he solves a baffling riddle to fulfil the last wish of a close friend. And in The Quills of the Porcupine, the shrewd detective is in his element as he expertly foils the sinister plans of a ruthless opportunist. Sreejata Guha s translation captures brilliantly the thrill and ingenuity of Byomkesh s exploits just as it does Bandyopadhyay s remarkable portrayal of a city struggling to overcome its colonial past and come into its own.

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Publié par	Penguin Books Ltd
Date de parution	09 mai 2006
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9788184758412
Langue	English

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SARADINDU BANDYOPADHYAY
The Menagerie and Other Byomkesh Bakshi Mysteries
Translated from the Bengali by SREEJATA GUHA
PENGUIN BOOKS
Contents
About the Author
The Menagerie
The Jewel Case
The Will That Vanished
The Quills of the Porcupine
Translator s Note
Copyright Page
PENGUIN BOOKS
THE MENAGERIE AND OTHER BYOMKESH BAKSHI MYSTERIES
Saradindu Bandyopadhyay was born on 30 March 1899 in Jaunpur, Uttar Pradesh. His first literary venture was a book of poems, published in 1919. At the time he was a student in Vidyasagar College, Calcutta, and lived in a mess on Harrison Road (now Mahatma Gandhi Road). His room at the mess was later to become a model for Byomkesh Bakshi s famous first residence. He married in 1918, while he was still a student. Subsequently he studied law, and then dedicated himself to writing. By 1932, when the first Byomkesh mystery appeared, he was already an established writer.
In 1938, Saradindu moved to Bombay to work on screenplays for Bombay Talkies and later for other banners. He worked in Bombay till 1952, when he gave up his ties with cinema and moved to Pune to concentrate on his writing. He went on to become a popular and renowned writer of ghost stories, historical romances and children s fiction in Bengali. But the Byomkesh series remains his most cherished contributions to the world of contemporary Bengali fiction.
Saradindu Bandyopadhyay was a recipient of the Rabindra Purashkar in 1967 for his novel Tungabhadrar Tirey. He was also awarded the Sarat Smriti Purashkar by Calcutta University in the same year. He passed away on 22 September 1970.
Sreejata Guha has an MA in Comparative Literature from State University of New York at Stony Brook. She has translated Saradindu Bandyopadhyay s Picture Imperfect (a collection of Byomkesh Bakshi mysteries) and Band of Soldiers (a collection of the Sadashiv stories), Rabindranath Tagore s A Grain of Sand: Chokher Bali, Home and the World and The Prince and Other Modern Fables, Saratchandra Chattopadhyay s Devdas, Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay s Rajani and Taslima Nasrin s French Lover for Penguin.
The Menagerie
1
Calcutta, soon after the Second World War. Summer was at its peak. Satyaboti s brother, Sukumar, had taken her and the child away to Darjeeling. Byomkesh and I were on our own in the Harrison Road flat, left to roast in the heat.
Work was a little slow for Byomkesh just then. This was nothing new; but this time, the length of the slack period and the sheer monotony of leisure were getting on our nerves. We were urgently in need of some diversion. To compound our misery, Satyaboti and the baby too were away. In sheer desperation, we had taken to playing chess.
I had an aptitude of sorts at the game and I had taught it to Byomkesh. At the outset, he was quite easy to trump. But with time, it became increasingly difficult to beat him at the game. Eventually, the day arrived when he checkmated me with the unexpected move of a pawn. I was aware of the saying that there is no shame in being defeated by one s disciple. But when you start losing to someone whom you have only just initiated into the game, you begin to lose faith in your own abilities. I was quite disconsolate.
It didn t help at all that it was unbearably hot. Ever since that morning in March when I had woken up with my bed soaked in sweat, the last month and a half had seen a gradual rise of the mercury with no respite in sight. It was not as if it didn t rain a couple of times, but this only served to step up the humidity level. The fan whirred overhead relentlessly, night and day, but this brought no relief either. I felt as if I were immersed from head to toe in rasgulla syrup.
With mind and body in this despondent state, we had set the chessmen out on the charpoy again one morning. Byomkesh was on the verge of checkmating me with his rook and I was perspiring profusely from the anxiety his anticipated move generated when there was an intrusion.
It came in the form of a soft but persistent knocking on the door. It couldn t be the postman-his knock carried a note of aggression. So who could it be? We looked at one another in eager anticipation. Could it be that the long-awaited new mystery crying for a solution had come to our door at last?
Quickly, Byomkesh slipped on a kurta and opened the door. Meanwhile, I too made myself decent for company by draping a thin muslin stole over my naked torso.
The door opened to reveal a middle-aged gentleman. He was of medium build, a little stolid, with a sharp, clean-shaven face. On his nose sat a pair of frameless spectacles with tinted lenses. He had on a pair of snow-white trousers and a half-sleeved silk shirt. He wore no socks, but was shod in a pair of braided, Grecian sandals. All in all, a well-turned-out look.
In a very cultivated voice, he asked, Byomkeshbabu ?
That s me, Byomkesh replied. Come in, please.
He offered the gentleman a seat and adjusted the regulator to increase the speed of the fan whirring overhead. The man took out a visiting card and handed it to Byomkesh. The printed card said:
Nishanath Sen Golap Colony Mohanpur, 24 Paraganas B.A.R.
The other side of the card carried the telegraphic address Golap and the telephone number.
Byomkesh raised his eyes from the card and said, Golap Colony. That s sort of an unusual name.
A slight smile appeared on Nishanathbabu s face. Golap Colony is the name of my garden, he explained. I have a wholesale business marketing flowers, mostly roses. Of course, we grow vegetables too and there is a dairy unit as well. I have named the place Golap Colony.
Byomkesh gave him a piercing look and said, Oh, I see. How far is Mohanpur from Calcutta?
Nishanathbabu replied, From Sealdah, it is about an hour s journey by train. But it doesn t exactly lie on the railway route. It s about a couple of miles from the station.
Nishanathbabu s manner of speaking was unhurried, almost indolent. His warily alert countenance indicated however that this apparent torpor was not really laziness or apathy, but a practised performance. I would surmise that this habit had developed from years of speaking in carefully measured tones.
Under the influence of our visitor s slow and studied speech rhythms, Byomkesh s own speech pattern seemed to have grown a trifle indolent as well. He said very slowly, You did say you were in business. But you don t look like a trader, not even like an agent for a foreign merchant company. How long have you been in the business?
A little over ten years, Nishanathbabu replied. What, in your opinion, could be my profession?
I would think you were a civil servant-perhaps even a judge or a magistrate.
Behind the tinted glasses, Nishanathbabu s eyes glittered for an instant. But he continued in his calm and contained voice, I do not know how you guessed that. I was, actually, in the justice division of the Bombay sector and went on to become the sessions judge. Then I retired and have been running this floriculture business for the last ten years.
Do forgive me, but how old are you now? Byomkesh asked.
I am going on fifty-eight.
Which means that you retired at the age of forty-seven. As far as I know, the retirement age in a government job is fifty-five.
Nishanathbabu remained silent for a few seconds and then said, I have high blood pressure. The first symptoms surfaced ten years ago. The doctors said I d have to give up all cerebral activity or I would die. So I retired from the job. Then I moved to Bengal and began growing flowers and vegetables. There are no worries or tensions in this job, but the blood pressure seems to continue rising with age.
Byomkesh said, You mention that there are no worries. But there must have been some cause for great stress recently, or you would not have come to me.
Nishanathbabu smiled-a fleeting flash of pearly white teeth from the corner of his mouth. He said, Yes. That, of course, does not require superior powers of deduction. For a while now, something strange has been happening on my farm He stopped short and turned towards me, You are Ajitbabu?
Byomkesh said, Yes, he is my associate. You can speak freely in his presence.
Nishanathbabu said, Oh, there s no secrecy involved in what I have to say. But Ajitbabu is a man of letters and I thought perhaps he might be able to enlighten me about something. Ajitbabu, is there a Bengali synonym for the word blackmail ?
I was flustered by this unexpected question. I had been intimately involved with the Bengali language for many years now and it wasn t unknown to me that the Bengali idiom was not entirely in step with modern Western education; in most cases, Western ideas had to be articulated in a Western language. I floundered and stammered, Blackmail-the extortion of money by threatening to reveal a secret; as far as I know, there is no corresponding term in Bengali.
In a tone laced with scorn, Nishanathbabu said, I thought as much. Anyway, that is irrelevant. Let me narrate the incident to you in brief.
There is no need for brevity, Byomkesh interjected, please go into details. That would help us get a better understanding of the case.
Nishanathbabu said, All the people who work under me in Golap Colony, apart from the gardeners, belong to a respectable class of society-but each is different or odd in his own way. Not one can be called a straight or simple person. The usual ways of earning a livelihood are closed to them. So they have all congregated on my doorstep. I give them a place to stay, food to eat and some pocket money every month. These are the terms under which they work at the farm. It is a little like a sanctuary. It may not be the most comfortable life, but at least they are saved from the threat of destitution.
Can you elucidate a little? Byomkesh asked. Why are the normal channels of earning a living closed to these people?
Nishanathbabu said, Some are handicapped by one physical disability or another and are, therefo