Praise for The ABCD

 

Unlikely sleuths!

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There may have been many books released over the past few years that were set in Kolkata, but only few have been able to portray its nuances and quirkiness so beautifully. Suparna Chatterjee’s ‘All Bengali Crime Detectives’ (note the abbreviation, ABCD) tells the story of four recently retired Bengali men in a middleclass Kolkata neighborhood, who struggle to come to terms with lack of work after retirement, giving them a feeling of absence of purpose in life. Suddenly they find themselves in a thrilling situation — a crime takes place in their neighborhood and they are the only witnesses. The four secretly form a detective club, but will the unlikely detectives be able to resolve the case? Though the crime and investigation is the main storyline, it is actually a story about the four lively gentlemen. The city is a character too like the protagonists, struggling to find meaning in a world that is fast writing them off. As the investigation takes place, a lot of other things happen in the neighborhood — a difficult match-making process, rivalry between two neighboring clubs over Durga Puja, squabbles between seniors and younger members of the local club and so on. Happy reading!

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September 12th, 2011

 

A Combo of Blyton, Christie and Ray!

 

Bibhuti Bose calls out to the rickshaw wallah, ‘Roko hum idhar girega’. ‘Arrey kyon girega babu? Aap kaskey pakriye na,’ replies the rickshaw-wallah. ‘Uff, Hum idhar hi girega. Samajhta nahin, bewakoof. Mera ghar peechey reh gaya.’ Suparna Chatterjee’s novel is loaded with this kind of colloquial Bengali punnery and wit. The narrative is familiar, even predictable, but it still made me chuckle. Four retired, balding friends turn into dhoti-clad sleuths when a diamond ring gets stolen from their quiet Kolkata neighbourhood. The four remind you of amiable seniors at Kolkata’s famous Tollygunge Club: they still go to telephone booths to make STD calls, scan through The Statesman’s matrimonial pages to find a match for their ‘wheatish- complexioned’ daughters and spend sleepless nights when younger members replace them on the Durga Puja committee. This is an enjoyable mix of Enid Blyton, Agatha Christie and Satyajit Ray’s Feluda, and combines the thrill of mystery with the charm of a familiar city.

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March 28th, 2011

 

Write where the Heart is

 

Suparna Chatterjee tells Sravasti Datta she loves to write simple stories that are, at their core, very Bengali

With her doll-like face, large eyes and the red bindi on her forehead, Suparna Chatterjee looks every bit the quintessential Bengali. In fact so strong is her sense of roots — despite having lived in three different continents — that it’s one of her strengths as a writer. Her debut novel “The All Bengali Crime Detectives” (Rupa, Rs. 150) provides a word picture of the sights and scenes of Kolkata, Chatterjee’s birth place. Chatterjee, though settled in Bangalore, still remembers her childhood days growing up in the City of Joy. “This novel is a release of nostalgia I felt for home.”

The Chemistry graduate’s sojourns in the United States, France and Singapore made her think of home like she never did before. “Staying away from home gave me a different perspective. The sheer charm of it became more apparent.”

Suparna has crafted endearing stories of individual characters around the central story. Four recently retired men turn detectives when a robbery, involving them, occurs in their otherwise peaceful and friendly neighbourhood. While the four try to solve the case, other issues crop up: finding a perfect match for a dusky-complexioned girl and rivalry over organising Durga Puja are some of them.

“I was sure I didn’t want to write a stereotypical detective novel. I chose retired, middle class men as my main characters and not a smart, savvy detective.” A slight pause later, Suparna breaks into smiles. “The unlikeliest detective I could think of was my father. He has an eccentric sense of humour. His group of friends — incidentally all of them are avid bridge players — are equally interesting. I knew that by basing my characters on them, it would open up comic possibilities of epic proportions.”

Suparna believes that Bangaloreans will be able to relate easily to her novel. “Many readers in Bangalore told me they loved the book, much to my surprise. They said that even though they hadn’t visited Kolkata, the book transported them there.”

 

 

Endings are comforting

Some of the stories in the novel have no conclusion. Most readers are waiting for the sequel to “The All Bengali Crime Detectives”. Suparna offers another explanation. “We look for logical endings because it’s comforting. But life as we know it has no finite end. Each incident or event is complete in itself.”

Indeed, Suparna tells profound stories through a simple style. I ask her how she achieves this. “Writing comes to me naturally. It’s effortless.” On further probing, I learn that she has learned the sitar for ten years. She likes Indian and Western classical music. “And a bit of Pink Floyd,” she adds with effect.

Writing, for Suparna, was initially a hobby. She enjoyed writing short stories, poems and plays. By and by, Suparna’s writing got recognised. Her play “Anand and Benaifer” is another feather in her cap. “I am part of the Art of Living Foundation. I was asked to write a play for their ‘Yes plus’ programme within ten days! It was a challenging production. It was a musical with 40 characters.” The play was well received. Suparna recounts: “The play is about Anand, a Tamil Brahmin, and Benaifer, a Parsi girl, who fall in love and decide to get married. I remember watching the play, flanked on my left by Tamilians and on my right by Parsis who alternately kept breaking out into peals of laughter.”

Apart from the writings of Amitava Ghosh, Jhumpa Lahiri and J.K. Rowling, Suparna is inspired by Swami Vivekananda and the Bhagavad Gita. The stories written in ancient Indian literature are simple and startlingly philosophical. “‘Matrix’ and ‘Inception’ are all inspired by Indian literature. We have a vast bank of such stories, we must never forget them.”

Suparna admires the way culture and language has been preserved in South India. “The North can learn so much from the people here.”

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May 13th, 2011

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The City of Joy has new crime fighter!

 

Kolkata-born Suparna Chatterjee has travelled extensively—she lived in the US, France and Singapore—and is currently based in Bangalore. It’s these experiences that piqued her to come up with her debut novel. However, the characters, the culture and the location that she brings alive in The All Bengali Crime Detectives (ABCD) is from her birth place, Kolkata.

“People abroad are very inquisitive about India, specially in France, where I was enquired by many about Bengali culture, Tagore, Ray and Amartya Sen among other things. It was in France that I wrote the novel,” says the author, who writes short stories, poems and adventure stories for children. ABCD is a release of nostalgia she felt for her home city, coupled with her love for the mystery/adventure genre. “I wanted to show life in Kolkata through ABCD. And since I had been a fan of detective stories, I thought a detective angle would make it interesting,” says the novelist. ABCD is quintessentially Bengali—local terms paara (neighbourhood) and addas (relaxed venues where people chat) have been used liberally. “Unlike other cities, where neighbours are merely strangers, the good-old neighbourhood culture is still alive in Kolkata. Bengalis have a fondness for debates and can indulge in conversations for hours. These two things, which are typical of Kolkata life, are explored in the novel,” she notes. The author, who has also penned Anand and Benaifer, a musical play staged in Bangalore and Mumbai, maintains that ABCD is devoid of stereotypical detectives ala Sherlock Holmes or Feluda. “My detectives, four recently retired men, are commoners. They are a far cry from the smart, confident and observant detectives. I wanted to create my own detectives,” informs the young writer, who is happy the book has attracted readers outside the Bengali community. The book offers a slice of life of the City of Joy and hence will be of more interest to those who haven’t visited it, assures Chatterjee.

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May 2nd, 2011

 

The All Bengali Crime Detectives (Rupa, Rs 150) by Suparna Chatterjee presents the latest slew of super-sleuths, the rising stars of detective fiction: Akhil Banerjee, Bibhuti Bose, Chandan Mukherjee and Debdas Guha Roy. Balding, pot-bellied and given to saying “iye”, these four retired friends take on the world of crime when a diamond ring, which once belonged to the Queen of Garhwal, is stolen from their quiet Calcutta neighbourhood. But distractions abound — a match must be found for a “wheatish- complexioned daughter” and, as Durga Pujo draws near, squabbles break out between two local clubs. A self- confessed fan of Enid Blyton, Agatha Christie and Satyajit Ray, Chatterjee combines the charm of the familiar with the thrill of a good mystery.

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March 4th, 2011

There is a set of mystery readers who endlessly look for books like Agatha Christie’s. Christie-like books, called the Cozy Mysteries or “Cozies,” are lightweight and fun mysteries mostly devoured by women.

Here, the murders are civilised, the setting is small town and the sleuth is usually amateur. There is neither gory violence nor graphic sex.

The crime is neatly solved and good triumphs over evil. They also usually have a woman in the lead and detail in minutiae the towns in which they are set.

Along with Agatha Christie, three other women writers — Dorothy Sayers, Ngaio Marsh, and Margery Allingham —wrote a plethora of Cozies in the 1920s.

The most popular among them is undoubtedly Agatha Christie and the one who has almost vanished from the scene is Allingham. Christie’s two popular sleuths — Hercule Poirot and Jane Marple have stolen readers’ hearts for many decades.

Christie started using psychological analysis and logical deduction to solve crime rather than using the obvious blood-and-cigar trails that were the norm till then. Almost as prolific as Christie was Ngaio Marsh with 32 novels featuring policeman detective Roderick Alleyn. Dorothy Sayers has penned 16 novels with a suave detective, Peter Wimsey.

At one time, all mysteries from Perry Mason to Sherlock Homes were Cozy mysteries. But later, as mysteries started getting more hard-boiled, Cozies have become mostly by women for women. The most popular contemporary writer of the genre has to be Mary Higgins Clark. She has written nearly 40 books, some in collaboration with her daughter Carol Higgins Clark. Then there is Janet Evanowich, Charlaine Harris, Rita Mae Brown, and Lilian Richards enjoying a fair share of success writing their Cozies.

Alexander McCall Smith is the most well-known male writer. He has created a most enjoyable series The Number One Ladies Detective Agency, set in Botswana. Not very popular in India, but a bestselling American mystery series with an even more popular TV tie-in is Murder, She Wrote by Donald Bain. People know Jessica Fletcher, his protagonist of the series, a lot better than the author himself!

Among Indian writers, yesteryears have seen the Feluda series by Satyajit Ray and the Byomkesh Bakshi ones by Saradindu Bandopadhyay. More recently, Kalpana Swaminathan’s Lalli Mysteries make an interesting read. But the one book recently released that snugly fits the bill of a Cozy is Suparna Chatterjee’s All Bengali Crime Detectives. Four retired men, endearing in their own ways, solve a neighbourhood crime. Suparna brings Calcutta to life through her protagonists.

Young-Adult girl fiction comprises of love stories or fantasies and not many mysteries. However, not all girls like girly tomes. Cozy mysteries do not have much boy appeal with their gentle themes, but they certainly make a good read for mystery-loving girls as young as even 12 years old.

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June 1st, 2011

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