Leisure and Resistance to Work Regimes in Satyajit Ray's /Feluda/ Novels

Presenter:

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Abstract

This paper aims to read the contentions of a leisurely life and resistance to work regimes in the Feluda detective stories penned by Satyajit Ray. With its first appearance in the young adolescents’ literary magazine Sandesh in 1965, the series of detective stories under the eponymous title Feluda gained huge popularity and a significant place in Bengali literature that continues to remain unparalleled. Unlike other figures of Bengali detective fiction like the Holmesian Byomkesh Bakhshi, the Feluda stories epitomize a postcolonial Bengali bhadralok sensibility, forging rational thought, urbane cosmopolitanism and a longing to preserve the innocence of youth. Shirking office work, the protagonist represents a figure interested in knowledge, sensitivity and intelligence, in fact, a scholar of the world, ironically described in his business card as ‘Pradosh C Mitter, Private Detective’. The stories of his adventures are recounted by his accompanying young nephew, Topshe, who in many ways signifies Satyajit Ray’s ideal reader, the young male Bengali adolescent. The world of Feluda created by Ray is in stark contrast with the urban life of growing bureaucracy in Bengal of the 60’s. By reading these stories from a perspective of leisure as autonomy and opportunity to seek the higher truths in life, symbolised in the career of a private detective, this paper aims to understand negotiations of a life of the mind in a world that is fast-approaching global work regimes, especially in literature that romanticizes youth, is told in the voice of the young and is aimed at a readership of growing adolescents.