For the generation that grew up watching the middle class Bengali detective talk about the small principles governing the various aspects of life, it was a shame. I am not here to compare this movie against the previous attempt. I am not even saying that this is not a good movie or not worth watching.
I remember watching in admiration the small gestures Soumitra would make, the eye movements, the non chalant attitude and yet we could connect with him, the "buddhi deepto bangali chele" who had kept the doors and windows open for knowledge to come in. He was one of us, he belonged to our family, we were all like topesh trying to make sense of what he is doing and learning... imbibing.
Times have changed and the bangali too has changed. The gentleman here with the same name looked like caught in between the two worlds, the golden age that once was, and the commercial age that is now. Lalmohan babu might well have graduated from an ambassador to a Santro but his intellectual faculties seemed to have completely disappeared over the long decades.
I guess as Bengalis, it might be difficult to list out what is amiss. Because Satyajit's movies struck one deep inside, deep in the subconscious mind, so deep that they virtually became part of our consciousness. And it is precisely this urge to connect with the main source of consciousness that we throng the theatres with such high hopes. As the credits start rolling one had a stark realization - the feluda of sonar kella was no more.
