Agatha Christie turns 130 today.
From an unresolved mystery at a hotel in Mussoorie inspiring her debut novel to the adaptation of her long running play 'The Mousetrap', let us navigate through the many Indian connections of the Queen of Crime!
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Summer of 1911: Frances Garnett-Orme, a British spiritualist, arrived at Mussoorie's Savoy. She was followed by another spiritualist, E. Mountstephen. One day, while Eva had gone to Lucknow, Frances was found dead, with traces of poison. Eva went scot-free due to lack of evidence
The case intrigued the British populace in India and it reached Rudyard Kipling who sent the details of the mystery to his friend Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The facts of the case were passed on to Agatha Christie and the case was fictionalized into 'The Mysterious Affair at Styles'.
In her autobiography, Agatha Christie revealed that the basic idea of 'The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd' was first given to her by her brother-in-law James Watts.
However, in March 1924, she received a letter from Lord Mountbatten, the last Viceroy of India.
Lord Mountbatten attached an idea and some notes for another story. He often wrote under a pseudonym. As it turned out, his basic premise was the same as Watt’s.
In 2013, The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd was voted the best crime novel ever written by the Crime Writers Association.
Christie maintained notebooks where she jotted down ideas. She reminded herself to look up datura poisoning as administered by Indian wives to husbands. She used this angle in the Miss Marple story 'A Caribbean Mystery'. Datura also features in 'The Cretan Bull' starring Poirot.
Christie's 'The Mousetrap' opened in London's West End in 1952 and ran until March 2020, when it had to be discontinued due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, in 1960, it saw one of its earliest film adaptations, in Bengali titled 'Chupi Chupi Ashe', directed by Premendra Mitra.
Her best-selling mystery, 'And Then There Were None' was adapted in Bollywood as 'Gumnaam' in 1965. Over the years, there have been Tamil and Kannada films loosely based on the work. In the 2001 film 'Ghost World', one can come across the song "Jaan Pehchan Ho" from Gumnaam.
B.R. Chopra's 1973 film Dhund borrows its plot from the 1958 play The Unexpected Guest. Just like And Then There Were None, many regional films heavily lifted the basic storyline from this work.
Similarly, the 2012 Mohanlal-starrer 'Grandmaster' was adapted from The ABC Murders.
Arguably the best adaptation of a Christie work in India also happened in Bengali. Rituparno Ghosh adapted The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side into Shubho Mahurat, with Rakhee Gulzar as Ranga Pishima, Ghosh's own Miss Marple. The film also starred @nanditadas among others.
Agatha Christie remains a hugely popular writer, even today. Her first marriage was to Colonel Archibald Christie, who was born in Peshawar. India continued to appear in her works, often strenuously connected to various characters.
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