Byomkesh Pawrbo (Byomkesh Episode)

This is second in my series of Byomkesh Bakshi’s stories turned into movies. First one was Sujoy Ghosh starrer Satyanweshi. Byomkesh Pawrbo is based on the story Amriter Mrityu by Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay.

This came as an episode “Amrit Ki Maut” in the Rajit Kapoor starrer TV series. You can find it on youtube https://youtu.be/UR7Vcm1G9P4.

Directed by Arindam Sil, Byomkesh Pawrbo stars Abir Chatterjee in the role of Byomkesh and Ritwick Chakraborty as Ajit Bandopadhyay.

Unfortunately, Indian cinema has not been successful in promoting its regional movies to the entire country. It’s quite woeful that aimless Hindi movies find mass market but good content from regional players never reaches an audience. With advent of Amazon Prime and Netflix, this is changing. According to this Forbes article,  Bengali movies have found an international audience – “Writer-director Arindam Sil’s Byomkesh Pawrbo, the latest in a series of films featuring cerebral Bengali sleuth Byomkesh Bakshi, has been acquired by Amazon for international markets, not just its soon-to-launch Indian service, in a multi-title deal with the producer Venkatesh Films.”

Hotstar while not advertised like the two above also has impressive regional content with subtitled movies.

Coming back to Byomkesh Pawrbo…

The movie starts with Byomkesh rescuing a minor girl from trafficking in Kolkatta while his wife Satyabati (Sohini Sarkar) believes he is giving a speech as a function organized by the writer’s guild. Soon Byomkesh is invited by the government to look into some smuggling of illegal arms, left by the British after WWII at Dooars. Byomkesh sets out to Dooars accompanied by Ajith and Satyabati.

The suspicion is on four prominent businessmen with the money and power to carry out these dealings namely Nafar Kundu, Badrinath Das, Biswanath Mallik and Jamuna Das Gangaram. Sukhomoy Samanta (Sumanta Mukherjee), the local head of police is to help them in their quest.

Once they reach the destination, Byomkesh and Ajith find the police head very unwelcoming and he also broadcasts the news of their arrival to all and sundry. This irritates the duo. Soon Byomkesh meets all the businessman and is unable to put his finger on the real culprit. All of them have something to hide. Amidst all this, a simpleton from the village Amrit is shot dead in the jungle. Amrit’s friends feel guilty as they sent him into the jungle and approach Byomkesh to take on the case. Before dying Amrit had claimed that he had seen a ghost in the form of a black rider atop a black horse in the jungle. Amrit dies near the house of a local quack Sadanand Sur and Byomkesh finds horse’s hoof prints near the back wall of his house. While he is investigating the area Sadanand who was away on business to Kolkatta turns up. As he is about to open the main gate of his house, there is a blast and he is killed.

Suspecting a relation between the two murders and the smuggling of black arms, Byomkesh enquires about who owns a horse and learns that all the four businessmen including the police chief owned a horse. This further complicates the matter.

The rest of the story is how Byomkesh entraps the actual smuggler and forces the truth out of him.

Arindam Sil has given a more macho look to his Byomkesh as compared to the original character. Sujoy Ghosh was much more intellectual in his approach, more reminiscent of the arm chair detective. Abir Chatterjee is more muscle and disguises and charm. I guess this makes him more relatable to the masses, my preference of course is the more laid back version 😉

Over all the movie managed to keep the suspense till the end, you can’t say for sure who is the culprit. The stories of Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay are more suited for a TV series. And that’s why you will find the TV series faster paced. However, the director has adapted this when well by introducing the various subplots and alternate lines of investigations. Some songs have been added to give mass appeal but they don’t really seem out of place.

I quite liked Ritwick Chakraborty as Ajit Bandopadhyay unlike Anindya Chatterjee as Ajit in Satyanweshi. Also, this version of Ajith was truer to the character and brings clarity for Byomkesh from his reading and writings. Abir Chatterjee as Byomkesh while not the best rendition for me, but still fits the bill. Some more chutzpa would have brought some colour to the more hands-on interpretation of Byomkesh. Sohini Sarkar as Satyabati doesn’t add any significance to the movie, but is unobtrusive and helps in adding precious minutes to the length.

It’s an interesting suspense drama which will keep you glued.

Do Watch.