I was thinking about poor Sandip Ray this week. The detective he directs on screen unravels the most complicated of cases swiftly. So guess how long our own Babuda -Sandip to outsiders -took to ink a deal for Feluda? Three whole months! That’s the time he spent to complete the paperwork selling worldwide digital rights and Bangladesh TV rights for the sleuth’s stories.Someone told me that Babuda actually asked what digital rights meant before signing the deal. What he didn’t realise was, since he was signing off worldwide digital rights, even if the Feluda web series was made in Bangladesh, it could easily be seen in Kolkata. And that is exactly what happened. As the teaser released online and people on both sides of the border praised it, Babuda raised a right royal rumpus. After all, for 25 years since Satyajit Ray passed away, he has zealously guarded Feluda and only made the films himself. But now, all seemed to be coming undone. A team from Bangladesh is right now in Kolkata to sort the matter out.
After all, two stories -Ghurghutiyar Ghotona and Sheyal Debota Rohoshyo -have already been shot, with Parambrata both playing Feluda and directing the series. A total of 30 stories will be filmed and the makers don’t want any trouble. But you can’t blame Babuda too. He doesn’t use a mobile phone and probably didn’t even understand how the digital rights would come back to bite him.
There’s another angle to the story, and that, of course, involves He Who Must Not Be Named. I’ve been told that when the makers of the Feluda series started probing why Babuda had suddenly got upset, they smelt foul play. It seems someone from You Know Who’s end was trying to throw a spanner in the works, since his own production house was producing a Byomkesh web series. As if Puja face-offs were not bad enough, who would want the two supersleuths to get locked in an online battle for eyeballs?
