Two mysteries and one crime against fiction
Every time most of us “think” of crime fiction, we instinctively think of Victorian London bylanes, monochromatic American cities, Miss Marple’s guest room, or bleak Scandinavian landscapes. Crime fiction has become quite synonymous with foreign lands populated by, well, white people.
Which is why last week I decided to dig out something closer home.
The first story I pulled out to read, Chena Daye (Familiar Risk), by Priyanath Mukhopadhyay, is actually two separate stories, the first one a preamble to the main story. The opening tale, Bondhokey Juachor (The Pawning Conman) is about Kamini, a woman who infiltrates households by dint of her charm and cons the women into giving her their gold jewellery to be pawned, which she later exchanges for brass jewellery. She is caught, and the author ends this mini- story with the lines, “Readers, don’t think that there is only one such Kamini who cheats respectable ladies to make a living. There are hundreds of such Kaminis in this city of Kolkata.” Mukhopadhyay, who was with the investigative wing of the Kolkata Police from 1878 to 1911, wrote the legendary “police mystery” series Darogar Dophtor (The Inspector’s Files) that started in 1892 and which, over 206 stories, ran for twelve years. The main story, Bikroye Juachor (The Selling Conman), tells the story of a man who’s been hoodwinked of his life savings. The meat of the story lies in the details of the hustle.
The victim identifies the drifter as Sheikh Bachhiruddin who had approached him one day asking him whether he would like to make some easy, good money. He knows someone who has a load of jewellery that was recently robbed from a gold store. If they rustle up some money and buy the loot at a low price, Bachhiruddin tells his mark, they can sell it for a handsome profit.
The reader knows from the start how it’s going to end. After all, the victim is narrating all this to the inspector. Mukhopadhyay centres his story round the actual con rather than how the conman is caught — which happens rather anti-climactically over one paragraph and involves a parade of suspects.
Chena Daey, story no. 84 in The Inspector’s Files series, was published in 1898, eleven years after Sherlock Holmes’ first appearance, and seventy years after the publication of the first “official” crime “fiction”, Mémoires de Vidocq, by Eugène François Vidocq, a criminal-turned-director of the French National Security-turned-private investigator. And forty-two years after the Kolkata Police was founded.
That historico-socio-police novel done, I lurched in the opposite direction: Kalnaginir Rono-Hunkar (Kalnagini’s Battle-Cry). Now, to give the hundreds of paisadreadfuls from the 1950s-60s written by Swapankumar even the epithet of “pulp” is a crime by itself. Kalnagini is a villain from one of Swapankumar’s many “detective” series. Her face always covered in a black veil, she is a Robin Hood who steals from the rich supposedly to help the poor. In this story, Kalnagini — literally “Black She-Snake” — has dodged the hangman’s noose and has sent the private eye, Deepak Chatterjee, a letter “challenging” him.
There are screeching cars and gun shots are described with “Goom!”, fights with “Aah!”, clock towers with “Dhong!” and phone-rings with “Ting ting”. Characters speak as if they are wet sock puppets. All that Deepak seems to do is get into silly disguises (of a Kabuli, a Sikh, a “pedlar”) and deal with baddies with names like Kallu and Jagua.
In a climactic scene, Deepak is a prisoner of Kalnagini. “Kalnagini clapped her hands. Immediately, two men entered the room. ‘Command us, Deviji.’ ‘Get some warm milk.’ ‘Milk?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘But he is our enemy.’ ‘Even though he’s our enemy, he’s our guest. Listen to what I say. Go...’.”
That miserable hilarity over, I reached for something I had discovered only a few weeks ago. Bankaullah’s Dophtor (Bankaullah’s Files) is a collection of twelve police stories which, according to historian Sukumar Sen, was first collected from police files and published in English “after 1855” and later translated into Bengali. The jury is still out as to whether Bankaulla’s Files predate The Inspector’s Files. Also, no clear authorship is known, although the cases are thought to be those of Barkatullah Khan, a real police inspector.
In the first story, Hathkata Harish (Armless Harish), the author-narrator tells us about a serial-killing spree across Bengal. He comes across a mysterious Brahmin with one arm, Harishbhatt, who travels with his faithful “pahari” servant. While providing wonderful character details, the author thrills us with the sporadic news of one murder after another as our hero follows this Brahmin. We know early on that Harish is behind the murders of three women and one man from the same extended family. But why does he kill?
It turns out that the killer-Brahmin is fulfilling a love vengeance. The mystery unwraps in the form of a confession. So, in a sense, it›s not terrific sleuthing. But all great crime fiction is as much about capturing the world the crime inhabits — and the form the crime takes — as it is about solving the mystery. And the author of Bankaullah’s Files does that with tremendous force and style. Indrajit Hazra is a writer and journalist. His latest book is Grand Delusions: A Short Biography of Kolkata (Aleph).