Popular detective series ‘Byomkesh Bakshi’ writer Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay

Courteous greetings on the occasion of 120th birth anniversary of Bengali language writer Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay. He was also actively involved with Bengali cinema as well as Bollywood. His most famous creation is the fictional detective Byomkesh Bakshi. He wrote different forms of prose: novels, short stories, plays and screenplays. However, his forte was short stories and novels. He wrote historical fiction like Kaler Mandira, GourMollar (initially named as Mouri Nodir Teere), Tumi Sandhyar Megh, Tungabhadrar Teere (all novels), Chuya-Chandan, Maru O Sangha (later made into a Hindi film named Trishangni) and stories of the supernatural with the recurring character Baroda, the Ghost Investigator. In addition, he wrote many songs and poems. Bandyopadhyay wrote short stories, historical as well as social novels, poems, songs, essays, and stage plays. He also wrote several screen plays, some of which were based on his other writings. His stories are always very short and generally have a twist ending; in this respect, he can be compared to another prominent author, Balai Chand Mukhopadhyay, a.k.a. Bonoful. Humor, wit and satire are prevalent in his work. The main theme of most of his writings is romance. He was very selective and a perfectionist. The first Byomkesh Bakshi work appeared in 1932. One of his earliest stories, Raktasandhya, appeared in Bengali in 1939 and was later included in The Scarlet Dusk(2003), a collection of 5 of his stories translated into English. He moved to Mumbai in 1938 to write screenplays for Bombay Talkies and other film banners. He gave up ties with the film industry in 1952, and moved to Pune, to concentrate on writing. He wrote several ghost stories, historical romances and children’s stories in Bengali language.