| Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay | |
|---|---|
| Born | 30 March 1899 Jaunpur, British India |
| Died | 22 September 1970 (aged 71) Pune, India |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Language | Bengali |
| Notable work(s) | Byomkesh Bakshi stories, Baroda |
Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay (Bangla: শরদিন্দু বন্দোপাধ্যায়) (30 March 1899 – 22 September 1970) was a well-known literary figure of Bengal. He was also actively involved with Bengali cinema as well as Bollywood. His most famous creation is the fictional detective Byomkesh Bakshi.
He wrote different forms of prose: novels, short stories, plays and screenplays. However, his forte was short stories and novels. He wrote historical fiction like Kaler Mandira, GourMollar (initially named as Mouri Nodir Teere), Tumi Sandhyar Megh, Tungabhadrar Teere (all novels), Chuya-Chandan, Maru O Sangha (later made into a Hindi film named Trishangni) and stories of the unnatural with the recurring character Baroda. Besides, he wrote many songs and poems.
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He was born to Tarabhushan and Bijaliprabha Bandyopadhyay at Jaunpur in Uttar Pradesh, India. He passed the matriculation examination in 1915 and took admission in Vidyasagar College, Calcutta. While studying there, he published his first work, Jaubansmriti, a collection of poems, at the age of 20. In 1919, he passed the B.A. examination. He studied law in Patna and then devoted his time to writing.
Bandyopadhyay wrote short stories, historical as well as social novels, poems, songs, essays etc. Besides, he also wrote several screen plays, some of which is of his own writings. His writings are always very short and generally it have a twisty ending and in these regards, he can be compared to another great author, Balai Chand Mukhopadhyay, a.k.a Bonoful. Humors, witty comments and satires are prevalent in his creations. The main theme of most of his writings is romance, basically it is the beautiful relationship between a man and a woman. He was very selective and a perfectionist.
The first Byomkesh Bakshi work appeared in 1932. One of his earliest stories, Raktasandhya, appeared in Bengali in 1939. It was later included in The Scarlet Dusk (2003), a collection of 5 of his stories translated into English. He moved to Bombay in 1938 to write screenplays for Bombay Talkies and other film banners. He gave up ties with the film industry in 1952, and moved to Pune, to concentrate on writing. He wrote several ghost stories, historical romances and children's stories in Bengali over the next 18 years.
Byomkesh Bakshi is a Satyanweshi ,i.e., inquistor.
Baroda is a ghost-hunter. Like the Mejokorta of Premendra Mitra, he has direct interactions with ghosts. In Byomkesh O Baroda, the two characters meet, but the supposed ghost is found to be a rouge man by Byomkesh.
(See also Byomkesh Bakshi for individual stories featuring this detective)
As screenplay writer:
Bandyopadhyay was awarded the Rabindra Puraskar in 1967 for the novel Tungabhadrar Tirey. The Calcutta University honoured him with the Sarat Smriti Purashkar in 1967 too.
Roy, Pinaki. The Manichean Investigators: A Postcolonial and Cultural Rereading of the Sherlock Holmes and Byomkesh Bakshi Stories. New Delhi: Sarup Book Publishers, 2008. ISBN 978-81-7625-849-4.
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