Be still, our beating hearts. It seemed like the months would never pass but Dibakar Banerjee's hotly-anticipated Detective Byomkesh Bakshy! is finally here. Sushant Singh Rajput stars as a fictional Bengali sleuth on his first case in 1943's Calcutta. Dibakar's gritty take is noir in the extreme, featuring blood-spattered scenes, many of them set in the dark, twisting bylanes of Calcutta's Chinatown. (Also read: Detective Byomkesh Bakshy! Climax and Villain Video Leaked?)
Last week, Sushant and Dibakar spoke to NDTV at length about the film. Here are 10 things they told us about Byomkesh Bakshy.
1.Byomkesh Bakshy has been played by several actors - Uttam Kumar, Rajit Kapur, Abir Chatterjee, even director Sujoy Ghosh. Sushant's take: "I was very fascinated by the idea of doing something that has already been done so many times."
2. This is where Sushant's preparations for the period piece began: "Long conversations (with Dibakar) about Calcutta, it's culture, it's history, (author) Saradindu Banerjee."
3. Sushant Singh Rajput, an actor possessed of the most North Indian of names, had to convincingly play a Bengali. This involved learning to eat like one. Dibakar explains that Sushant "Learnt how to eat with just one hand, and not with two hands. Taking the bone out of the fish, or putting the fish in your mouth and taking the bone out."
4. And then there was the dhoti that Sushant not only wears like he was born in it but also performs stunts in. Sushant on mastering the dhoti drape: "Took me around six or seven days. It was very complicated when I actually started wearing it but I got a hang of it. It takes me around 13 seconds to tie a dhoti."
5. And now he's an expert, so there's no chance of wardrobe malfunctions. Sushant says, "I have a feel of it now, I know exactly when it's about to open."
6. He might be a keen bloodhound when it comes to clues about criminals, but the young Byomkesh Bakshy is entirely clueless in matters of the heart. As Sushant puts it, "He's no black belt in love and seduction."
7. This is how Sushant thinks he's like Byomkesh: "Talks less, listens a lot and observes things."
8. And this is how Sushant thinks he and Byomkesh are unalike: "He (Byomkesh) is very upfront and most of the times he comes across as very rude."
9. Sushant doesn't think Byomkesh would survive the 21st century, unlike Benedict Cumberbatch's Sherlock. He barely survives 1943. Sushant says: "He's just learnt a few tricks to survive in the society. Nowadays, we are trained and conditioned to act in a way that we are expected to, we want that validation. Byomkesh is too honest to be existing right now."
10. The only time Sushant was 'skeptical and scared' about playing Byomkesh was in Calcutta, when he was told by several locals "this is our Byomkesh, don't go anywhere else."
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