Sherlock Holmes and Byomkesh Bakshi as Binary Oppositions

Abstract

Sherlock Holmes may be the most famous detective in literary history, but Sreejata Guha considers Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay’s Byomkesh Bakshi narratives “a classic of (modern Indian literature)” (Picture Imperfect viii), easily forming the most popular Bengali detective fiction in late pre-independence and post- independence India. Culturally, while Holmes sports the general European deerstalker, ulsters, jackets, shirts, trousers and heavy shoes, Bakshi sports a much less westernised look and is, indeed, rather a level- headed dhoti‑clad bourgeois Bengali gentleman, who is rooted in his time but is keenly aware of the societal and political fault lines that inform his context. He wages an intellectual opposition to Holmes as well as to Poirot and Father.