The Bengali culture is standing on a few pillars in the post-Tagore era. The most well known among them is certainly Satyajit Ray. Ray was not only famous for his films; he was also one of the leading authors in this part of the country.
He started writing detective stories for children in the children’s magazine Sandesh. His sleuth Pheluda was an immediate hit. The private investigator Pheluda solved cases by means of his high intelligence and profound mystery-solving skills. His cousin Topshe was his companion in adventures and narrator of the stories.
But the Pheluda stories would not have been complete without Lalmohanbabu. Introduced for the first time in the story Sonar Kella, the character of Lalmohan Ganguly became so popular that he was made to appear in all the forthcoming adventures.
Lalmohanbabu provided the lighter part to Pheluda tales. He was a comic relief resembling the common North Kolkata middle-aged man of the 70’s and 80’s. A writer of mystery-adventure thrillers for children by profession, Lalmohanbabu under the pet name Jatayu wrote stories having funny titles like Sahara-y Shiharan (The Tremors at Sahara) and Honduras-e Hahakar (Cry Out at Honduras) which immediately reminds one of North Kolkata’s own Bot-tala tradition. His address 110,Garpar Road was the house next to where Ray himself had actually spent his childhood days. The protagonist of his detective stories was Prakhar Rudra, a larger than life private detective who was clearly influenced by and modelled on Pheluda himself. He even resembled Pheluda's looks to a great extent.
Contrasting Pheluda’s sharp features, toned physique and a height of 6 ft. Lalmohanbabu was a short man, 5’4”. He was a bald-headed, timid kind of person. He was also full of ignorance and made numerous mistakes in his stories. However, he always reacted very sportingly when Pheluda showed him his mistakes and corrected them. Even though he was much older to Pheluda, Lalmohanbabu always had great respect for him, his abilities, and intelligence.
Met accidentally in a train compartment in Rajasthan in Sonar Kella, Lalmohanbabu and Pheluda both liked each other and Lalmohanbabu was so thrilled to meet a real detective that he followed Pheluda and Topshe in all subsequent adventures like Hatyapuri, Jai Baba Phelunath, Jato Kando Kathmandu-te etc.
In fact it was he who attributed the title Three Musketeers to their gang. One could never forget his lingo Highly Suspiciouswhich he attributed to any suspicious looking character larking around them in course of their adventure. Lalmohanbabu was also very loving and helping. He always visited Pheluda’s place with Mishties. Once, when he got a bonus from his publisher he arranged for a trip to a hill station for the three of them with that money. He also grew to be brave enough. For instance, he saved the day for Pheluda in Joy Baba Phelunath, when he stood before the knife thrower.
Lalmohanbabu was created as a comic person to make Pheluda look more heroic in contrast to him. He always puts up a smile in your lips with his small nuances when you are reading a Pheluda and his character is almost indispensable in Pheluda stories. What Captain Haddock is to Tintin tales Lalmohanbabu is to Pheluda.
