Reading time : 7 minutes
‘I set the story in the 1940s. When one could still hear in the middle of the night the bells of mail-runners in the distance. When electricity hadn’t reached most villages’
Shubho Roy is a writer, graphic designer, artist and illustrator. In 2024, he published his debut detective fiction in Bengali, Bhusokalir Naksha, a path-breaking novel in the tradition of classical Bengali literature, set in the 1940s, against the rural backdrop of a small village in Birbhum, Bengal. The novel examines the life and times of ordinary people in a time of major transitions. Roy has trained as a visual artist in the famous Kala Bhavan, Santiniketan, established by Nobel laureate, Rabindra Nath Tagore. He lives in his hometown of Santiniketan, Bolpur, also in Gurgaon. He is currently working on a science fiction novel. In conversation with Amit Sengupta, Editor, timesheadline.in
The name of your book is fascinating. Clearly, it is derived from your aesthetic work as a graphic artist. Tell us more about it.
‘Bhusokalir Naksha’ would roughly translate as ‘lampblack doodle’. It refers to a scene in the book where the detective stumbles upon some meaningless marks on the wall of an abandoned rice mill. As he tries to decode the strange marks made with lampblack soot, the narrator wonders if at all they mean anything, or, if both the detective and the narrator are merely trying to connect dots which have no connection. The marks thus become an allegory for the book itself, where the detective, Charbak, and the narrator, are trying to make sense of what appear to be disconnected events.
The word ‘naksha’, which can mean diagram, pattern or doodle, also refers to a genre of light, humorous fiction very popular in 19th century Calcutta. Now, the title may have some remote connection with my training as an visual artist, but I am not sure. But, it is true, that visuals, or imageries, are important in my writing. My scenes and set-pieces often emerge by way of visuals. Hence, perhaps, it’s not surprising that even the title sprang from a specific visual in the book.
What drove you to write a detective fiction, that too located in a typical rural setting, with its nocturnal mysteries and atmospherics, myths, oral traditions, ghost stories and unknown fears, which are both exciting and fearful?
Genres can give you certain rules, structures or narrative instruments. At one level, this book is a detective novel, and has all the elements of the genre. However, while the figure of the detective investigates a crime, the novel investigates life in a rural setting, with its rituals and myths, its struggles and inequities. I would like to believe, that in the end it is a story of people, ordinary people caught in a time of great transitions.
And yes, you are right about the rural backdrop. Most Indian detective novels we read revolve around urban settings. So I wanted to write crime fiction located in a rural, pastoral backdrop.
Naturally, that gave me scope to explore new kinds of objects and imageries. The scenes and set-pieces in the book are only possible in a rural landscape – vast paddies, blooming mustard fields, a mysterious woodland, abandoned rice mills, country fairs etc. Even the objects and motifs in the book—winter gourds, bean pods, the drongo bird, wild boars, palanquins, wooden boats and dinghies—are all elements that belong in the countryside.
I set the story in the 1940s. When one could still hear in the middle of the night the bells of mail-runners in the distance. When electricity hadn’t reached most villages.
The story revolves around new moons, and in a modern urban setting, with electric lighting, it wouldn’t have been effective. I had in mind a specific atmosphere at the very outset, with a certain texture of details, only possible in a rural setting.
Were you inspired by a similar genre in Bengali literature? Can you name the writers, if any?
I am glad you asked. I grew up reading Bengali detective fiction, Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay and Satyajit Ray being favorites. But my debt to Bengali literature goes beyond that genre. In fact, Bengali books that had an impact on me as a child or a teenager somehow made their way into my book.
For example – I am fan of Abanindranath Tagore’s vivid, descriptive writing. I have borrowed motifs from his Buro Angla and Khirer Putul and reworked them into my narrative. Or Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay’s way of using nature as a foil for human action, as we find in his Pather Panchali, or even his adventure novel, Chander Pahar (Mountain of the Moon).
Tarashankar Bandyopadhyay’s documentation of rural life in the Rarh region was a constant reference point. His keen eye for the conflict between the old feudal economy and emerging capitalist forces, playing out in village relations, helped me understand that period a lot.
I have repurposed motifs or imageries borrowed from many writers who shaped my idea of Bengali literature, including near-forgotten ones like Savitri Roy or Giribala Devi. This was, in a way, my homage to Bengali literature.
There are references to crime fiction too. The cannon motif in the story is a nod to Sharadindu’s crime thriller, Durgo Rahasya. And, of course, Rabindranath Tagore. One of the central conflicts in my book around animal sacrifice is a nod to his play Bisarjan. I could go on. The point is, I see writing as a dialogue with the history of writing.
Are you also inspired by the ‘Noir’ narratives of detective stories, such as in Scandinavia? Kurt Wallander series by Henning Mankell, among others? Besides, have you read PD James, who shifts the narrative into a kind of classical literature, with her main character, Adam Dalgleish, a deeply sensitive poet?
I have a very thin reading of Nordic Noir, and detective novels form a sliver of my overall reading. Though, I have to admit, when I do read them, I usually enjoy them – whether it’s Arthur Conan Doyle or Agatha Christie, Anthony Horowitz or Henning Mankell. But, as a writer, I am more interested in authors who employ the mechanisms of the detective genre as tools of exploration.
I recently read Andrés Neuman’s Traveler of the Century, which uses a flimsy crime story in the background to hold together a 600-page tome of a book that is more interested in exploring philosophy, theology, literature and relationships. Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose is a proper detective novel, and, yet, it uses the core idea of the genre—truth-seeking—to delve into the idea of truth and detection through the lens of semiotics. Perhaps, the detective genre is an optimized form of storytelling designed to produce heightened expectations and payoffs.
These same mechanisms can be used to explore ideas and situations. Javier Marías’s A Heart So White has the same kind of energy. Garcia Marquez’s Chronicle of a Death Foretold reads almost like a detective novel, though it sidesteps some of its traps. Same can be said of Orhan Pamuk’s My Name is Red. Or Olga Tokarczuk’s Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead. Just to name a few. Some of Jorge Luis Borges’ stories too.
Many of the murder series, or detective fiction, like that of Mankell, locate themselves in the complexity of human characters, their vulnerabilities, imperfections, strength of character, in the idea of evil or goodness. For instance, Kurt Wallander, the lead detective, is single, with high blood pressure etc, surviving on junk food, sleeping on a chair with an half-empty wine bottle, often very fragile and humane, not macho at all. Besides, these writers also locate their books in the realism of their social and political milieu, as a reflection of the times. Your comments.
True. In Nordic literature, I think it started with the Martin Beck character, who is very much a predecessor to Mankell’s Kurt Wallander. So whether it’s Beck or Miss Smilla, Wallander or Lisbeth Salander, the hero here is shown as part of the broken system. They are themselves broken, often both physically and mentally, sad or disillusioned, or carrying deep traumas, often reflecting the system itself.
The harsh and alienating Scandinavian landscape adds to their melancholy. Landscapes can be a constitutive factor in human behavior. Gradually, even this can become a caricature of itself, as more and more writers employ similar techniques, but without the same diligence. It’s always a game of delicate balance, like, if the flaws and cracks are merely there for an effect, or, if they justify their presence.
In the beginning of the series, we see many of Wallander’s troubles—whether it’s his failed marriage or his relationship with his daughter—stem directly from his extremely demanding job as a policeman. So his troubles are not just ornaments, but are rooted in what he does and who he has become under extreme pressure. We see his discomfort in what is a routine police job – to break bad news, specifically, news of death, to unsuspecting family members. Or the way he is navigating the changing demographic landscape of Sweden in the face of rising immigration. All this becomes believable because they are somehow directly related to what he does, or who he is.
I must also add, that not all detective characters have to be like that. There is space for diversity even within the genre too, and we can enjoy different kinds of detectives, as long as they work within the narrative logic of the universe they inhabit.
Movies in this genre: which are your favourite ones? And why?
Memories of Murder by Bong Joon Ho would be the first to come to mind; a beautiful and complex film, at once using and subverting many of the genre tropes. I liked the series Mindhunter, the first season in particular. I liked how Guy Ritchie used the city of London in his Sherlock Holmes, showing it as a city under construction. Here, we see a grim and dirty industrial town, and London’s Tower Bridge being built over the Thames in the background, and somehow the city itself becomes an allegory for the evolution of modern morality.
I think it was Borges who said, the British love two things – morality and legality, and their two loves converge in the detective genre. This secular ‘Enlightenment’ morality emerged alongside the modern way of life, and part of this process was the modernization of great old cities and its institutions – precisely what we see in that movie.
The film is about a growing religious cult that commits ritualistic murders, so what is at stake here is the very legacy of the Enlightenment. Detective fiction itself is a product of the Enlightenment, and reflects a certain understanding of causality that governs our everyday lives.
You are a creative artist as well. Tell us about it?
Well, I trained as a fine arts artist, but I have been working as graphic designer for many years. My work mainly revolves around branding, and as part of it, logo designing, lettering etc. Occasionally, some project would come my way that is different and exciting, and one such was designing the cover and masthead for the centenary issue of the celebrated children’s magazine, Sandesh.
Those familiar with the magazine will know that it’s an iconic publication in Bengali language. It was when Satyajit Ray was the editor and designer that the iconic ‘Sandesh style’ of graphical covers emerged. My challenge was to design a contemporary look but without breaking Sandesh’s aesthetic tradition – the flat colors, simple shapes, and each cover told a simple story. The masthead I designed later featured in some online and print publications as one of the trend-setting logos from around the world, despite it being primarily Bengali lettering.
I don’t always get to design book covers, for various reasons. For my own book, Bhusokalir Naksha, my initial idea was to design the cover using woodcut printing. So I started developing some quick watercolor sketches in preparation for that. Later, the woodcut idea had to be shelved, and I rearranged these same sketches to produce the cover.
Your next novel?
I have been working on several books simultaneously for the last few years. This book happens to be the first to reach completion. Another book, which I hope to finish soon, is a science fiction revolving around the themes of bees, books and memories. The central idea came to me long time ago, and then around 2017 I wrote a sketchy short story around the idea. Recently I picked it up again to expand it to a novella-length work. There are a couple of more projects as well, so the next couple of years are going to be busy. Hopefully.