(Top) The dacoits come galloping towards the train; (below) the camera moves along with the train. Pictures by the author

I am very nostalgic about Bombaiyer Bombete. After 10 Feluda telefilms, it was our first attempt for the big screen. I had long been requesting Babuda (Sandip Ray) to make a feature film on Feluda and he gave in after a lot of pestering.

We shot Bombaiyer Bombete in Calcutta, Mumbai, Visakhapatnam, Araku Valley and Ramoji Rao Film City in Hyderabad. This time we had a new Feluda-Topshe-Jatayu team. Bibhuda (Bhattacharya) and I had worked together before; it was Parambrata’s first as Topshe.

The high point of the Bombaiyer Bombete shoot was of course the chase scene at the end, where there’s a film-within-a-film sequence and Rajesh (Sharma) chases our train on horseback. He was heading a band of dacoits. The sequence was shot in Visakhapatnam.

Our costumes were all ready when someone noticed that the dresser had forgotten to get headgear for the dacoits. Someone suggested we go ahead without this accessory but dacoits don’t really look like dacoits without their turbans.

So, my friend Bhanu rushed to the local market and bought scrap red cloth from a hardware shop. We made turbans out of that for the horsemen. And then all of a sudden, it started raining! Everyone rushed for shelter. The dacoits took their horses under the trees but they all got wet and after a while there was red water dripping from their turbans. Their costumes had turned red! But as we had a long shot lined up next, it wasn’t much of a problem.

This was the film’s climax. We boarded a small passenger train with four bogies which was to chug out of Visakhapatnam station for Araku. First, we canned trolley shots of the train from a bridge. Then, the camera tracked the train from left to right. For the relation shots, Babuda needed the train to pass the same stretch in the same direction again. But the driver said he wouldn’t do that as he didn’t have permission to fit another engine at the rear of the train and drag it to the original point. This landed us in a soup.

The horses had been brought from Bangalore and it was all a waste. But since those shots were really necessary, Babuda decided to return to Calcutta, get permission from Eastern Railways for the train’s return trip and then go back again.

(Next week: Feluda returns to Araku Valley)