Childhood dream may come alive for Dibakar Banerjee

Filmmaker Dibakar Banerjee who has made a few critically acclaimed movies now wants to follow his dream. The director is looking forward to realise his childhood dream by recreating the war-torn Kolkata of 1940s on the big screen with his ambitious adaptation of Sharadindu Banerjee's famous fictional character in Detective Byomkesh Bakshi. Dibakar, in some of his earlier works has based his films on stories or novels. Banerjee directed Star which is a story in the film Bombay Talkies is based on a short story by Satyajit Ray called 'Patol Babu, Film star'. Dibakar's film Shangai is based on a novel called 'Z' by a Greek author Vassilis Vassilikos. Dibakar now feels its is the right time to revisit the character that he grew up reading about.

Dibakar has won Two national Film Awards for Khosla Ka Ghosla and Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye!. He is glad that he has experience in hands before pursuing this dream. "For many, the nostalgia for Byomkesh Bakshi comes from the Doordarshan serial but my nostalgia for this character comes from reading Sharadindu's stories. I wanted to make a movie on Byomkesh since I was 12, so it is a dream come true. I wanted it to be my first film but I am happy that I am doing it after having the experience of 4-5 films," said the 44-year-old director.

He is confident that his version of Byomkesh will unravel things that have not been explored in other adaptations. Dibakar's film is a contemporary interpretation of war torn Calcutta during the 1940's and follows the first adventure of Byomkesh, fresh out of college, as he fights an evil genius who is out to destroy the world.

"My film is the first original adaptation of Sharadindu's stories. We are going to the origin of Byomkesh as he solves his first ever case. Sharadindu wrote his stories over 30 years and there are many details that have been left untouched because most of the adaptations have dealt with the detective element only. Children were banned from reading Sharadindu's stories upto a certain age because there is a lot of seductiveness, adventure, thrill and romance. Byomkesh romanced while working on his cases," says Dibakar.

PTI