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The big bang: Detective Byomkesh Bakshi to unveil poster in Calcutta on Saturday

The Telegraph, Calcutta

Wednesday, 17 December 2014 10:09 AM

Kolkata: Dibakar Banerjee has not only pulled out all the stops to make Detective Byomkesh Bakshy historically accurate, the man behind films like Shanghai and Love Sex Aur Dhokha also wants to link his Byomkesh Bakshy retelling with landmark historical events in the city it is based in.

Dibakar and leading man Sushant Singh Rajput " who plays Sharadindu Bandopadhyay's super sleuth " will be in Calcutta on December 20 to launch the first-look poster of their April 2015 film at The Lalit Great Eastern, located in the city's central business district. 

Dibakar, who launched his film in Calcutta's Burdwan Rajbari in July 2013 and has shot extensively at various city landmarks like Lalbazar and Tiretta Bazar, has picked what used to stand tall as Great Eastern Hotel at the time of Detective Byomkesh Bakshy. 

"In late 1942-early 1943, Calcutta was the last frontier of the British empire holding out against the Japanese invasion of Asia. As Japanese bombs were falling on the Calcutta dockyard and (near) Great Eastern Hotel, history was being created and Calcutta stepped on to the world stage. It's right here that Byomkesh's first adventure catapulted him from anonymity to dangerous fame. I can't imagine a more fitting place to launch the first look of Byomkesh than this hotel," was the word from Dibakar. 

"According to the military chronicles of 1942 that we found in the National Library before we opened the hotel, it is evident that Japanese bombers were all over Calcutta and people were nervous about the air raids. There is evidence to support that a bomb did fall on the road (Waterloo Street) in front of the hotel on the night of December 20, 1942 and the bomb created a small hole there. The hotel may have been the target of the bomb but there is no clear evidence of that or that it fell on the hotel," said Rakesh Mitra, general manager, The Lalit Great Eastern. "We have received a request to hold the unveiling of the film poster in the hotel and I have been researching this subject for the last three-four days," he added.

With World War II as the backdrop and Byomkesh as a young man in his 20s finding his feet as a detective, Detective Byomkesh Bakshy was initially scheduled to hit screens in February 2015. However, post-production issues and scheduling conflicts have pushed its release to April. The first poster was due out in January in Mumbai, but Dibakar's eye on historical events surrounding his film means that it will now happen in Calcutta this Saturday. 

Detective Byomkesh Bakshy stars Anand Tiwari as Ajit with Swastika Mukherjee making her Bolly debut in the role of Anguri. The film's first teaser, launched in October with the tagline, Expect the Unexpected', has already notched in excess of one million views on YouTube.

Mumbai: Dibakar Banerjee is set to pay a tribute to a historical event with his upcoming film Detective Byomkesh Bakshy. We hear that the film will have its first poster launch in Kolkata, where it is set. To be more authentic, Dibakar got local artists from Kolkata to paint the posters.

Our source reveals, "The film is set in 1943. The first poster launch will take place in Kolkata on December 20. That day in the year 1943 Japan had launched an aerial bomb attack on the city in the The Great Eastern Hotel. Those were the days Japan went on a spree of aerial attacks and Kolkata (Calcutta at that time) was an easy target. The poster will subtly capture this event while also providing a glimpse of Sushant Singh Rajput who plays the title role. The posters have been hand-painted by Kolkata artists and echo the artistic style of that period."