Picture Imperfect

Classic tales of crime detection featuring Byomkesh Bakshi the master inquisitor.Written long before Satyajit Ray’s Feluda series Saradindu Bandyopadhyay’s Byomkesh Bakshi mysteries heralded a new era in Bengali popular fiction . Set in the old-world Calcutta of the Raj there stories featuring the astute investigator and his chronicler friend Ajit are still as gripping and delightful as when they first appeared.Byomkesh’s world peopled with wonderfully delineated characters and framed by a brilliantly captured pre-Independence urban milieu s fascinating because of its cotemporary flavor In the first story Byomkesh works undercover to expose an organized crime ring trafficking in drugs. In the Gramophone Pin Mystery’ he must put his razor-sharp intellect to good used to unearth the pattern behind a series of bizarre roadside murders. In ‘Clalamity stikes’ the ace detective is called upon to investigate the strange and sudden death of a girl in a neighbor’s kitchen In he next story he has to lock horns with an old enemy who has vowed to kill him with an innocuous but deadly weapon. And in ‘ picture imperfect’ Byomkesh unravels a complex mystery involving a stolen group photograph an amorous couple and an apparently unnecessary murder. About the Author Saradindu Bandyopadhyay was Born on 30 March 1899 in Jaunpur Uttar Pradesh His first literaty 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 Raod (now Mahatma Gandhi Road). His room at the mess was later to become a model for Byomkesh Bakshi’s famous first residence. While still a student he married his wife Parul in 1918. Subsequently he restudied 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 till 1952 When he gave up his ties with cinema and moved to Pune to concentrate on his writing. He wen on to become a popular and renowed writer of ghost stories historical romances and children’s fiction in Bengali. But the Byomkesh series remains his most cherished contribution to the world of contemporary Bengali fiction.Saradindu Bandyopadhyay was a recipient of the Rabindra Pusakar in 1967 for his novel Tunghabhadrar tirey. He was also awarded the Sarat Smriti Purashkar by Calcutta University in the same year. The latter part of his life was spent in Pune where he passed away on 22 september 1970.Sreejata Guha has a BA in Comparative Literature with a First Class Firt from Jadavpur University Calcutta and an MA in the same subhect from State University of New York at Stony Brook. She is currently working in a Ph.D. dissertation on translation from the original Bengali. She has worked as a translator and editor with Stree Publishers and Seagull Books Calcutta and written extensively on theatre Popular culture and the environment for various national publications. She lives in Peters burge (USA.)