Hat tip to the homegrown jasoos

In the vast ocean of detective fiction and films sleuthsmdashwhether amateur or trainedmdashhave often been accompanied by a literary foil a sidekick who assisted them and brought forth the best of their investigative abilities Consider Karamchand and Kitty or Sherlock Holmes and Dr John Watson In The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra British author Vaseem Khan pulls an unexpected trick he fashions a young elephant as the sidekick giving Choprarsquos enterprise a fitting namemdashthe Baby Ganesh Detective AgencyStories like these in the genre drew in scholar writer and editor Tarun K Saint who has long been fascinated by detective stories because of the intellectual challenge inherent in them The intriguing cluepuzzle structure aside he was also a fan of the ways in which they laid the groundwork for social critiqueDuring his time at the Delhi University where he taught English Honours he even dissected detective mysteries with students as part of a course It is then that Saint came face to face with a serious gapmdashthe absence of an adequate introduction to writers from India and the subcontinent who have deeply enriched the canonTarun K Saint Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay and Tanuj SolankildquoWhile detective fiction was part of the BA English Hons syllabus at Delhi University in my time Agatha Christiersquos The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was as far as we got in the paper on Forms of Popular Fiction besides Gabriel Garcia Marquezrsquos innovative Chronicle of a Death Foretold in another paperrdquo he says to midday adding that the gap has since been remedied with the addition of authors like Madhulika Liddle and IbneSafi during a revision of the syllabusSaintrsquos classes turned exploratory once he began introducing his students to references from the Indian greats Nearly a decade later he embarked on an ambitious project to compile original detective stories written in English as well as translated ones from the subcontinent defined by an offbeat distinctive nature that skipped past the cliches of the Golden Age instead embracing an experimental approach The result is a twovolume anthology published by Hachette India which offers the reader a sumptuous feast of stories which are parodic existential scifi police procedurals and historical mysteries Here the minds behind classics like Satyajit Ray and CS lsquoAmbairsquo Lakshmi are joined by contemporary names like Tanuj Solanki Kiran Manral and Shweta TanejaDressed in a yellow and red jacket with curious sketches of symbols and havelis the anthology is impossible to miss Its inner pages depict what the bookshelf of a genre fan may look like where a black cat makes itself cosy next to a magnifying glass And aside from its literary offerings it also gives us a quick look at the historical origins of the genre in India and nuggets of trivia such as the role of AH Wheeler stores at railway stations in expanding pulp detective fictionrsquos reachSaint notes that the genre took firm root in the Bengali literary culture resulting in beloved detectives like Rayrsquos Feluda and Sharadindu Bandyopadhyayrsquos Byomkesh Bakshi The popularity of ldquogoyendardquo fiction in magazines and novels from the late 19th century had much to do with the advent of colonial modernity in Bengal and the Anglicisation of the elite The genre was also wholeheartedly embraced in Tamil where the foundation was in fact laid by female writers ldquoLaura Brueck and Francesca Orsinirsquos work has revealed that detective novelist Vai Mu Kothanayaki Ammal who began writing as early as the 1930s was the very firstrdquo Saint highlightsInterestingly the worlds of some contemporary detectiveheroines like Harini Nagendrarsquos sareeclad Kaveri and Sujata Masseyrsquos Perveen Mistrymdashimagined as Mumbairsquos only female solicitor of the timemdashare also located in preIndependence India ldquoWhile Vaseem Khanrsquos Parsi policewoman Persis Wadia is based on Shanthi Parwani the first woman to join the Mumbai police force and eventually become an ACP in 1976rdquo Saint reminds usThe genrersquos strength in India lies in adapting to local culture and responding to the evils and oppression that plague society He takes us through Gopa Majumdarrsquos translation of The Locked Chest by Ray An elderly retired Bengali gentleman living in the countryside seeks out Feluda to help him in a case involving a parrot with seemingly mnemonic abilities an inheritance dispute and a murderldquoThe detective solves the initial puzzle set for him and eventually cracks the case on account of his keen understanding of kinship ties in zamindar families and the psychological motivation for theft and murder within them In the process the story bears witness to the difficulties of transition from semifeudal remnants to a more egalitarian and democratic social and cultural orderrdquo Saint explainsAgain and again Mumbai emerges as the backdrop for the solving of disappearances murders and stolen objects The anthologyrsquos editor says that the city like Kolkata and Chennai has been a coastal crucible where tradition and modernity have found their respective points of balance ldquoIn the work of Massey Nev March Anuradha Kumar Chandra and Khan the city acquires a definite character as an embodiment of possibilities which may veer in the direction of noir style narratives as well as lean back as historical mysteries uncovering lost stories about both repression and empowerment in the cityrsquos prehistoryrdquo Saint says ldquoAmbairsquos stories are remarkable examples of vernacular cosmopolitanism as she deconstructs the form in order to more effectively expose the dark underbelly of contemporary city life from varied subaltern perspectivesrdquo