Category Archives: জয় বাবা ফেলুনাথ

You may already know that many Hollywood blockbuster film dvds contain hidden features that are known as Easter eggs. As far as I know, the dvds of the Feluda films of Satyajit Ray, Sonar Kella (সোনার কেল্লা) and Joi Baba Felunath (জয় বাবা ফেলুনাথ)  do not contain any Easter eggs. However, in my opinion, they are also not necessary.

Like die-hard fans, I’ve seen both films countless times, and each time I’ve discovered new layers that add a rich subtext to the script, plot, and overall experience. If you watch the films carefully, you will notice that Satyajit Ray planted some very ingenious references to his father, Sukumar Ray’s classic book HaJaBaRaLa (হ য ব র ল).

From my childhood, HaJaBaRaLa has been one of my favorite books. Even today I get mildly upset when I hear it referred to as only a “book  full of nonsense” or “nonsensical book.” Just as Alice in Wonderland is not a book of “nonsense only for children” HaJaBaRaLa is not either.

I suspect that HaJaBaRaLa was a book that Satyajit Ray loved dearly too. Indeed, one of the characters in the book, Hijibijbij (হিজিবিজবিজ) took on a dark form in one of Satyajit Ray’s short stories, “Professor Hijibijbij.”

Both Sonar Kella and Joi Baba Felunath have references that the viewer will miss unless he or she is familiar with HaJaBaRaLa. For example, in the train-scene in Sonar Kella when Lalmohan Ganguly (Jotayu) first meets Feluda and Topshe, he asks Feluda his vital statistics to see if they match up with his own literary creation, Prokhor Rudra. Feluda nonchalantly answers that his waist measures “26 inches”, his chest measures “26 inches” and his wrist is also “26 inches.” This is a clear reference to the old man (বুড়ো) and the raven ( কাক্কেশ্বর কুচকুচে)  who mark 26 inches as the measurement of all the statistics of the protagonist in HaJaBaRaLa.  In HaJaBaRaLa, the pained response of the protagonist was “am I a pig?” Jotayu is beyond himself and asks Feluda if “he is a pig”. Jotayu and Topshe both get the reference in the film, though I suspect many viewers will not.

Later in the film, in a crucial scene when Mandar Bose, one of the bad guys, is apprehended for the first time, Feluda mentions that he will get “three months in jail, and seven days hanging.” This is the punishment meted out to Nyara at the end of HaJaBaRaLa.

Similarly, HaJaBaRaLa is referenced in Joi Baba Felunath too. Just before the trio discover that Sashibabu, an old artist has been stabbed, Feluda can be heard reciting the Sojaru-Mojaru verse that Nyara sings in HaJaBaRaLa:

Finally, in one of the “Eureka!” moments in the film, when Feluda is piecing together the different threads of the mystery , Jotayu displays his confusion quoting a very famous line from HaJaBaRaLa  (Chandrabindu-r cha, biral-er talobo shyo, aar rumaal-er ma)

Clearly, like the rest of us, Satyajit Ray was a huge fan of his father’s fantastic creation!

©2010-2012 Feluda.net. Please seek permission prior to reproducing. Screen-shot from Sonar Kella is very low-resolution and believed to fall under a “fair-use” rationale. It is used only for the purpose of demonstration.