[Reader-list] Crime pulp fiction in Bangla: Villains of Swapankumar

Fri Jul 22 23:50:38 IST 2005

Hello,

In the last posting I have introduced Swapankumar, possibly the most successful writer (if number of published books are concerned) of Bangla pulp pocket books of crime fictions. I have collected almost hundred pocket books written by him starting from 1953 to early eighties. From the back-covers of those books, information about other books written in the same series can be seen, but it is quite difficult to know exactly how many books were written over the years in different series. It seems quite a few publishers got engaged in publishing his works. After the exhaustion of an edition, new edition of the same series got published by a new publisher, where the reference of its earlier publication is not mentioned. So, at times, to estimate about the publication time of a series from a pocketbook might be erroneous, because the same series might have been published earlier by some other publisher. I am yet to fathom, whether this confusion regadring the chronology of the publishing
 date was an 'error' of the disorganised small scale publishing units, or a 'marketing strategy' adopted by the publisher with or without the knowledge of the writer. That non-mention of prior publishing dates would make the newer edition look like a fresh published product, at times with changed front cover illustration. Actually one can remember that a story (Baah! Granthakar, lit. naming the writer with satire) on 'real event' was published way back in 1894 in the series 'Darogar Daptar', written by retired police official, Priyonath Mukhopadhyay, where the illegal means were shown, how a 'writer' was using different illustrations and name in the title cover of an already published book, to make it look like a new book. In case of the books written by Swapankumar, these pocket books are hardly monitored or stored in libraries, so the simple tool of deception with publication dates really provide chance for a 'rebirth' of those books as new products. On a broader conceptual scale,
 this mistake/deception with dates can hint to a greater rupture from the mainstream notion of linear, arithmatic progression of years; and that might have something to do with the narrative strategies of Swapankumar and his predecessors from the era of Bat-tala publishing, about which I intend to deal in future postings.

His primary works are independent stories of crime, where villains from one story is completely different from that of the next story. Gradually seeing the increasing  publicity, the strategy of writing 'series' of tales were masterminded by the  author and the publisher. In those ventures, a number of stories were named under a series, while the first story was published, the book also provided names for forthcoming stories in the same series. Right now in my possession I have series like: Crime and Mysetry Series, Kaalrudra Series, Biswachakra Series, Rocket Series, Dragon Series, Kaalnagini Series, Baajpakhi Series, Kaalonekde Series etc. More and more series was made identifiable with the name of the villains like 'Kaalrudra, Dragon, Kaalnagini, Kalonekde, Baajpakhi' etc, while the central detective characters 'Deepak Chatterjee' with his friend and assistant 'Ratanlal' were always same, at times with some more characters like Deepak's female assistant 'Tandra' or Deepak's
 student 'Rajat Sen'. All the villains of these villain-centred series are termed 'Dasyu' (robber, dacoit), like Dasyu Dragon, Dasyu Kaalrudra etc. One can remember in this context, the writer of Ramayana, sage Valmiki was also a 'Dasyu' (Dasyu Ratnakar) before he became the famous sage. Moreover while scrutinising the names of these Dasyus of Swapankumar one can identify a broad division in naming. In one segment there are names like Dasyu Kaalrudra (referring to the 'destructor' image of Shiva), Dasyu Bajrabhairav (referring to Tantric Shaivism), Dasyu Chakrapani (referring to the name of Vishnu holding the Chakra), Dasyu Niyati (Niyati means destiny), Dasyu Mayabini (Mayabini means cunning conjurer-female). In the other segments there are names like Dasyu Dragon (the famous omnipotent utopian reptile), Dasyu-netri Kaalnagini (a female serpent which is believed to be powered by deadly poison), Dasyu Baajpakhi (the Eagle), Dasyu Kaalonekde (The black Wolf). Where the first segment
 of names have resonance of ancient mysterious, forbidden cults (Tantra etc), secret societies having a nucleus of different moral and spiritual order than the 'present' time having emphasis on fate and destiny, the second category of nomenclature of Dasyu-s provide  remnants of 'totemic clans', where the totemic principle is a real or utopian animal with magical power. One might argue that it is too much of far fetched 'reading' and 'meaning generation', but when those names are repeated again and again over the decades, then it can be studied with all the available interpretative gears. 

Actually, one can find a direct connection between these usage of 'mythical' names for the villains and a different sympathetic calibration of 'morality' on behalf of the villains. The most characteristic feature of these multiple series is, the Dasyu-s like Dragon, Kaalrudra etc are not traced till the end. In the primary titles, each time detective Deepak is enable to trace the eventuality of the crime but not the criminal --- like the central character like Dragon etc. Each time they escape at the penultimate moment, and often the story ends with a common sigh of detective Deepak and police inspector Mr. Gupta ---- they lament that again the Dasyu has escaped. The logic of marketability (that the criminal might escape in this volume, but finally he/she would be arrested at the end of the series) also doesn't hold good here. At the end also the villain goes away free and at times there lie some letters written by the Dasyu to Deepak, that it is not easy to catch him/her. Soon there
 would be a terrifying encounter with Deepak. Dragon and Kaalnagini were arrested once and after trial they were put for capital punishment. They escape from the gallows with the help of some mysterious hidden doors or criminals dressed as police near the gallows. Some of the  noteworthy characteristics of these villains are as follows:

1. Always they are in disgiuse, so nobody knows how they look.

2. Even in meetings with sub-ordinate criminals, the Dasyus come with mask covering the face, or instruct via radio signals.

3. Often after the crime, like robbery, theft, murder etc. they themselves give intimation that, their group have done the business, either over phone or by letter, at times they give intimation of their crime even to the Police HQ.

4. They respect private detective Deepak Chatterjee for his sharpness and agility, though they challenge over phone or letters that Deepak woudn't be able to catch them.

5. Some of them, like Kaalrudra or Kaalnagini, they are versions of Robin Hood. They rob from rich and powerful and help the helpless. In one of the stories in Kaalrudra series, news got spread that Dasyu Kaalrudra got killed by an unknown mercenary. Even the morning dailies crave for such 'tragic' death of a 'benevolent' Dasyu and criticise the role of police. Finally it is seen that Kaalrudra was alive very much to carry on the series.

6. When some new criminals arrive with their ruthlessness and cruelty, when they don't even spare the poor (the ultimate 'negativity' according to the moral standards bestowed upon the benevolent Dasyus by Swapankumar), some of these benevolent Dasyus send secret message to Deepak and help him to arrest those new criminals. In those instances both the Dasyus and Deepak become allies and at times Deepak chooses to fight these new 'amoral' criminals, drifting away from his long fight and chase with the 'benevolent' Dasyus.

7. At times by just seeing the financial condition of the victim of crime, or the degree of cruelty associated with crime Deepak comments that the crime is not done by the famous Dasyus. It suggests that Deepak is well aware of the moral standards of the Dasyus.   

8. In some of the cover illustrations (like Ajana Dwip-e Dragon lit. Dragon in an unknown island, Akashpathe Dragon lit. Dragon in the sky) it is surprisingly the good-man image that is ascribed to Dragon, which one can understand only after reading the story.

9.Till date I have found one science-fiction story written in crime format by Swapankumar (Prithibi Theke Durey, lit. Away from the Earth), where the criminal Bajrabhairav joined a scientist during the second world war in a remote area in Burma. The scientist invented some automatic tri-feeted instrument, which cannot be affected by bullets, granades or bombs. When Deepak as requested by the Governor General got into the investigation, he was prisoned by Bajrabhairav. The criminal said by generating those invincible instruments, his intention is to claim the 'peace' in the world from the powerful nations fighting with each other. There is a clear demarcation of 'this world' and the 'other utopian world'.    

10. In cases where the criminal is not of a series, there also generally it is unfolded that the present crimes are associated to some events of injustice, betrayal in the past.

If this aspect of morality associated with crime is one of the central features of Swapankumar stories, then one can trace a long tradition of 'moral criminals' starting from the early colonial period. In 1830s a memoir of a Thug (Amir Ali, convicted for 719 murders) was written by Colonel Meadows Taylor in a book named 'Confessions of a Thug'. I have managed to get a Bangla book 'Thagi Kahini' based on the prior mentioned book, written by a police officer, Priyanath Mukhopadhyay (who was also the writer of series of crime detection memoirs 'Drarogar Daptar' published since 1893). The life of that thug, Amir Ali was spared because he gave information to arrest lot of other thugs during the action of suppression of thugs under the supervision of Colonel Sleeman and under the instruction of Lord William Bentinck. Interestingly, as the memoir of Amir Ali unfolds, one can see that all the thugs used to consider themselves followers of a different 'Dharma' (religion), i.e. 'Thagi-dharma'
 and they were earnest devotees of Devi Bhavani or Kali. Even Amir Ali being a muslim used to be a sincere devotee of mother goddess. Even there was a concrete philosophy beneath their action of killing and robbing people, it goes like this: In the beginning Brahma created the universe and all living beings and Vishnu took the responsibility of nurturing them. But there was no mechanism for destruction while the continous creation and nurturing created the imbalance in the universe. Finally Shiva was assigned to carry out the job of destruction. While doing the job Shiva has to abide by the order and wish of his consort, goddess Bhavani. So the thagis, being the devotee of Bhavani are also assigned for taking away the life of human beings, who are 'sinners'. That way the souls of those perished persons are freed and no sin would touch the thagis, if they commit the killing without being involved in worldly passions. There was elaborate rituals when a new entrant used to take up
 Thagi-dharma. Even they had elaborate taboos, according to which they are not supposed to kill a range of lower-caste people (like washerman, iron-smith, oil producer etc), performers (like singer, dancer, roadside trickster), alternative religions of Bhakti-Sufi source (like people following Sikh-ism and Nanak-sahi, Fakir), patients of incurable diseases (like leprosy) and finally women. According the account of Amir Ali, the Thagi-dharma was well organised along with codifications done in a different language, which only a Thagi could understand, and everybody under that religion were considered equal. The belief was so strong in Thagi-dharma that a Muslim thagi didn't hesitate to take a false oath touching Koran. Every year they used to assemble during the Dussera festival and after the end of that Puja, they used to go out for months in search of hunts. Till the time they were unable to make the first hunt, they were not allowed to shave and have beatle leaves (Paan). And their
 means of sustainance had to be chiefly the money robbed from the 'sinners'. At the end of the oral description of his life, Amir Ali said in a despising tone to the English official, who was noting down Amir Ali's narration that: you English people are truly extra ordinary, you can make impossible possible, you can change the brave, powerful Amir Ali into a traitor. Amir Ali, once who was a victorious leader of thagis, on whom thousands of thagis bestowed their faith of life and death is now betraying them, listening to the ill advices and treacherous planning  monitored by English officials. At the fag end of life, not the hundreds of killing those Amir Ali did is unbearble, the act of the single betryal at the end of life is paralysing his mind completely. 

This final comment of Amir Ali gives an important clue regarding the conflict 'alternative morality' of 'criminals' and the new 'morality' of British rule. In the several oral tales about the robbers of Bengal compiled later in a book Banglar Dakaat, the propagation of similar nature of pre-colonial moralities can be found, which suggests a popular imagination and fascination for those aspects of alternative morality. 

Coming back to Swapankumar, in one story, Dragon is shown as a benevolent despot (in Ajana Dwip-e Dragon lit. Dragon in an unknown island), where he takes his suborditanes in a virgin, un-manned island, in Bay of Bengal, while chased by police and Deepak. There he implements rules of a 'utopian free society' under the keen eye of Dragon, where everybody would work and get their share according to their needs and they have to abandone all enmity, all difference among themselves. Does those pre-colonial moralities and moralities beyond the reach of present nation state someway got inscribed in the protrayals of Dasyus of Swapankumar?

Till next posting

Debkamal

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