The room was red. Red in fabric, red in spirit, red in the faint, flickering flame of memory. The seventh floor of Hotel Hindustan International was a random choice, but turned out to be a coincidence shaped into destiny. “One of the very same rooms where Shah Jahan Regency was shot,” Srijit Mukherji remarked, half-smile curling beneath his beard, as though the beige walls themselves still held echoes of old dialogues. Curtains hung like heavy drapes of theatre, and under them the cast of Jawto Kando Kathmandute stood in their Roy Abhisek outfits: Roy Calcutta’s interpretation of timelessness — dhoti, kurta, pyjama in regal shades of red. The garments breathed tradition, blood and ritual, as if the characters themselves had stepped out of fiction and into a room that was already waiting for them.

Only Srijit stood apart, not in red but in a tee with a Feluda reference etched across its chest. He would not trade his directorial spirit for costume. “Orthodox in one way, adventurous in another,” he would later confess. But for now, the four of them gathered around a low table, light catching the angles of their faces, ready to slip from nostalgia into adda.

We began, quite irreverently, with a quiz. Feluda trivia, Ray trivia, questions that set Tota Roy Choudhury grinning, Kalpan Mitra fumbling with youthful enthusiasm, and Anirban Chakrabarti already chuckling at his own answers. The room brightened with laughter. For a while, we were not critics, not actors, not director, not journalist. We were just children again, playing games with names that shaped our childhoods. But laughter thins, as it always does, and what began as a game turned quietly into the beginning of an elegy.

‘This will be my last Feluda series’

Srijit had announced this a few months back and even today, he did not cloak his words in mystery. He placed them as directly as his tee.

“Finances,” he said, his voice unadorned. “Most of Feluda’s adventures happen outside Calcutta. The budgets when we shot in Darjeeling, Kathmandu — they were different. Now there have been budget cuts in all the major OTTs, so making is very difficult. Chinnamastar Abhishap days are a sweet memory.”

Tota exhaled slowly, as though weighing the weight of those words. “For me it was difficult,” he admitted. “He is the only one who envisioned me as Feluda. So it takes a lot of courage to go against the tide and cast somebody who is not hot property at the moment. Today what you see in all three of us is shaped by him, the characterisation.”

He remembered a conversation with director Kamaleswar Mukherjee. “Kamaleswar told us that we are already in the skin of these characters, I have no inputs. That’s because of him (Srijit).”

Anirban leaned forward, fingers tapping lightly on the armrest. “He is emphasising it is the last series,” he mused, “but there can be a film… we can come together as a team for a film perhaps.”

Srijit nodded but did not soften the reality. “The simple reason being the budgets for films are much larger. I don’t want the budget to compromise Feluda’s quality. And I don’t blame the OTT owners, because the malaise goes much deeper — it goes into the capacity of the market and more. But I want my actors, my crew, everyone, and above all, the audience to be happy. Because if you’re disgruntled, it shows on screen.”

The truth lingered: an ending shaped not by desire but by numbers.

Jatayu and Eken Babu

How does one become Jatayu when one is already Eken Babu? Anirban smiled at the irony. When Srijit first approached him for Jatayu, he was already playing Eken Babu. Even before Srijit had fully conceptualised the Feluda series, he had passed by during a meeting and casually remarked, “Ami jodi kono din banayi, you will be Jatayu.” In that fleeting moment, destiny quietly took hold.

Srijit explained that he had done the same with Tota, while Kalpan had been discovered through an advertisement where Abir performed as Feluda and Kalpan as Topshe, strikingly resembling the master’s sketches. “We wanted to play true to the sketches,” he said. “If you see my Feluda, Jatayu, and Topshe, they leap off the illustrations. We were a doll to the master’s sketches.” Though known for radical adaptations, with Feluda he allowed no deviation. “It is not just me — it is the 14-year-old Riju who grew up reading Feluda. His instructions were clear: you cannot deviate from what you love.”

Then came the anecdote that made the room hum with amusement. Srijit recalled reading a Facebook post, revealing that the real Eken bore no resemblance to Anirban. The team, having found a fantastic actor who looked nothing like Eken, modelled Eken’s look on Jatayu instead. In a twist of serendipity, Anirban had embodied Jatayu even before officially stepping into the role. During Kakababur Pratyabartan, before Srijit had the rights to Feluda, he had based an antagonist on Jatayu, with Anirban playing the part. Essentially, he had played Jatayu twice before officially becoming Jatayu.

Anirban laughed. “And it was difficult. In the beginning, the brief for Eken was simple: Jatayu jodi Feluda hoto.”

The Double Life

To play both Eken and Jatayu in the same year is no small feat.

“It started when Srijit approached me for Jatayu,” Anirban said. “These are kind of two overlapping characters — dujonei bhool Hindi bole. Both are Bengali to the bone. The differences are… Srijit’s brief to us was that we should not copy any of our predecessors. That was a relief, because we could discuss and have our own interpretations. Despite the similarities, Eken is a much more layered character. But Jatayu is a simple Bengali writer, a loyal friend. With Eken, he is shrewd, with a lot of childlike elements. Eken is not what he looks like, but Jatayu is simply a writer. And Eken is a detective.”

The comparison was both mirror and shadow. One layered, one simple. One a trickster, one a loyal friend. Both speak faulty Hindi, both Bengali to the bone.

Meet Maganlal

The conversation turned to homage, to memory, to that iconic knife-throwing scene. “The Eken: Benares-e Bibishika that recently came out was a homage of sorts,” we reminded them. Does Jawto Kando Kathmandutey have similar elements?

“Not really,” Srijit replied. “There is an interaction with Maganlal Meghraj, but we don’t have the knife-throwing scene in this one. But earlier, we recreated that scene for a different platform (Hoichoi). The board where Jatayu stands unconscious, and then falls down as Feluda catches him just in time, resulting in Feluda avenging him from Maganlal Meghraj, the same board was used in Benares e Bibishika.”

“Maganlal Meghraj is undoubtedly one of my favourite villains of all time, not just from Feluda stories. There is a certain way about this person, his swag, charisma, sense of humour... this uncle-cousin thing, you know? Kharaj Mukherjee has done a fantastic job as Maganlal,” he added.

And what of importance — did Anirban feel less significant now that he was also Eken? “Not at all,” Anirban said firmly. “The treatment of the characters is appropriate and good. Jatayu is Srijit’s favourite character, so… in fact, there have been times when all three of us are shooting a scene and I take the first step, and I had to be reminded, you’re not a detective here.”

Tota joined in. “Also, for the story of Jawto Kando Kathmandute, all three characters play a very important role. There are scenes with just Topshe and Jatayu, which form a crucial part of the storyline too.”

Friendship at the Edge of Death

And then Srijit turned almost lyrical and his voice slowed.

“Jawto Kando Kathmandute has my favourite scene from all the Feluda series I’ve directed,” he said softly, “because it captures the essence of friendship like no other. You have adventure, you have the arch-nemesis — but above all, you have the human bond.” He recalled how Feluda takes revenge for Jatayu’s insult in Joy Baba Felunath at the hands of Maganlal Meghraj, uttering the immortal line: Hoye ami er bodla nebo nato goyendagiri chhere debo. That vow, he explained, was heavier than any act of violence. What followed — Jatayu’s reassurance, Feluda’s quiet acknowledgment — was not written in ink but in trust.

“Sometimes you don’t plan for magic, it just happens,” Srijit reflected. The day of the shoot had been drenched in the glow of thousands of lamps burning near Kal Bhairav Mandir. Against that blaze, three figures stood together, bound not just by story but by something older and truer. “I had goosebumps,” he admitted. “That scene is for posterity — three men standing for each other, fighting for each other, even in the face of death.”

Tota remembered the exact shiver. “It was absolutely spur of the moment. Maybe he had it in mind, but the way he placed it, the way he claimed the moment — that was pure instinct. As soon as he saw the setup, he just said, ‘We’ll shoot it here.’”

The lamps, the friendship, the fire — all etched into celluloid like an oath, a fragment of eternity.

Climbing the Mountain of Feluda

A retweet by Srijit had once compared Tota’s early Feluda to an echo of Sabyasachi, before finding his own voice. Did he agree?

Tota answered with reverence. “Soumitra Babu (Chatterjee) and Sabyasachi (Chakrabarty) were the highest peaks. Benuda in the 1990s was an icon, he still is to me. In Tintorettor Jishu we worked together and I saw the way he worked… observed him closely. He had an overwhelming personality, that was an influence. But I realised that if I emulated him, I would be a very bottled-down copy. So I had to traverse my mountainous path and find myself.”

Srijit smiled in agreement. “And it is a very valid process. Like, if you see in the world of music — you start off emulating your guru and start taking things from your guru that you think you could do best, then you mix with your style and make it into a style of your own.

“For me, the essence of Feluda’s expression — the acting with the eyes — reaches its pinnacle in Soumitra Chatterjee. Sabyasachi, on the other hand, aligned more closely with the original sketches, and of course, Tota carries that legacy too. Sabyasachi’s voice acting is pure gold, while Santosh Dutta’s timing — the way he reads a scene, knowing exactly where to drop a line — remains unmatched. And Topshe, with his innocence that is intelligent rather than naïve, offers another layer. These are the gifts we inherit from our predecessors, and from them, we reimagine our own characters.

“For example, Tota is our fittest Feluda. The famous morning exercises — Tota has given me so many variations of exercises. You want which one, this asan, that yoga? Anirban is such a fine actor — without being slapstick, Anirban can make you laugh.

“The tweet you mention talks about a graph, and I agree with the graph. After every Feluda series, at the success party, we chat. After Chinnamastar Abhishap we sat down and discussed — the comical banter has to increase, then make Feluda less stern, get him to smile more, let’s make Topshe sharper, more attentive. These three gentlemen come with three regulators, and after every series we sit and do some regulating.”

This Feluda, he reminded us, is the only one set in contemporary times. “The cinematographic treatment is similar, classic, but this time the characters have phones, smart watches, etc.”

Marriage and Memories

Kalpan, newly married, smiled shyly when asked about his wife’s response to his work. He did not speak much, but when he did, his words seemed to arrive after long thought. “I wait for her reaction,” he admitted, almost sheepishly. “She is both a fan and a critic.” On screen he may be Topshe, quick-footed and alert, but in conversation he lingered on silences, offering them as if they were part of his vocabulary. And what of Nepal, the city that had housed their adventure?

Kalpan’s eyes lit. “The most striking memory was on our return flight in a small Airbus, flying at a slightly lower altitude than usual. Beside us, the entire Himalayan range unfolded in breathtaking majesty — sharp, vast, and utterly stunning.”

Tota’s memory was more terrestrial, more delicious. “Srijit is always responsible for introducing you to the best food. He had reached a couple of days earlier, and when we reached, it was all decided where we’d eat and what we’d eat. I remember this one place we went with the rotating table and all-you-can-eat meat, momos, etc. Such a gala feast. I forgot about my diet that day. Such a paradoxical day.”

Anirban added, laughing, “We had a Thakali and more. Srijit is our leader… with food.”

Srijit nodded, almost mischievous. “Based on Feluda, right? He tries out the cuisine wherever he goes. And it is specially a discovery for Jatayu, who discovers something beyond machh and bhaat.”

Politics, Poetics, and the Present

As the adda drifted, reality pressed in. The series has released during tense times in Nepal.

“Coincidentally, our series is releasing at a time of tensions in Nepal,” Srijit acknowledged. “But the tensions didn’t happen in a day — a lot of factors play a role. We hope things get better. Any destruction or loss of life is unfortunate. It has been happening in neighbouring countries too.”

Outside, AJC Bose Road hummed its usual symphony of lights and traffic, but on the seventh floor of HHI, time seemed to fold in on itself. Four figures stood in a room filled with laughter, memories, and the quiet weight of stories told and yet to be told. They had spoken of adventures and knives, of lamp-lit nights in Kathmandu and Himalayan vistas, of laughter and lessons, of predecessors and the shaping of souls.

And yet, in that space, the essence of Feluda lingered beyond plots or budgets. It lived in the unspoken, in the subtle glance between Feluda and Jatayu, in Topshe’s quiet observation, in the human bonds that even the grandest mysteries cannot obscure. Perhaps this is not an end, but a pause: a candle waiting to be relit in a film yet to come, a laugh yet to echo across the screen, a lamp yet to glow on a Kathmandu night.

For now, the fire burns softly, warm and fleeting, in the hearts of those who leapt from the pages into reality — a last bow without a curtain, a farewell written in friendship and memory, a story suspended in time, waiting to be remembered.

Stylist: Roy Abhisek

Outfits: Roy Calcutta

Hair and make-up: Prosenjit Banerjee