Satyajit Ray is known for his films to me, till I come across his books in the series The adventures of Feluda, which gave another face of Satyajit Ray, a master suspense writer. That’s right. The Bandits of Bombay is a detective novel with a film background but following all the routines of a detective novel to make an interesting read from the start to the end.
The blurb gives out the story as:
"Feluda, Topshe and Jatayu are in Bombay where Jatayu’s latest book is being filmed under the title Jet Bahadur. Soon after Jatayu hands over a package to a man in a red shirt, a man is murdered in the elevator of the high-rise where the producer of the film lives. Feluda and his companions find themselves in the midst of one of their most thrilling adventures ever, with a hair-raising climax aboard a train during location shooting."
Fast paced, entertaining and interesting, The bandits of Bombay is a small book with 87 pages, that too in a crown size and readable in an hour or two but gives a feel of reading a good detective novel. Probably Satyajit Ray had this concept of making it as a film some day and he limited the scenes as such to fit it in couple of hours. Or is it that this is his writing style? I have to find it out from his other stories. (I read that the story is been used for a Bengali film in recent years).
With the Bandits of Bombay, Satyajit Ray succeeds in sending two arrows at the same time. First, he shows the Bandits who wander in the film industry. On the other, he shows the ignorance with which film makers approach the story and story writer. It tells how unimaginative the creative process in the film industry is. In this book, the writer of the film, Jatayu’s creative contribution is the best example.
The book’s cover gave away some of the suspense of the novel which is a pity. Say, the author kept a suspense, in such a short book and the cover designer decide to disclose as they could not think of something imaginative. Another problem with the novel is that the presence of the third person, Tapesh is purely unwanted and for a beginner to the Feluda series, setting perspective was a hurdle.
Otherwise, the story, the narration, the suspense were all of very good standard. Eager to read more of Satyajit Ray now.