Not only in comedy, but also in various other genres, Narayan Debnath's excellence and brilliance can be observed throughout his extensive body of work. The story of the magician continues ater Bantul and Hada Bhoda.
In 1969, another leading publishing house, Patra Bharati, approached Debnath Babu to start a comic series
similar to Hada Bhoda for their magazine, Kishore Bharati. Debnath started his new series, Nonte Fonte,
which was similar to Hada Bhoda and primarily focused on the mischievous activities of two young kids. Later, he watched the film Jagriti and drew inspiration from it, leading him to introduce the concept of a boarding school in the series.
He also came across the film "Paribartan," which inspired him to
create the popular character of Superintendent Sir, & Patiram Hati became a cult figure. He also included a sweet and mischievous character named Keltu, which completed the final form of the Nonte Fonte
series.
During the 1980s, Nonte Fonte was published as separate comic books after being detached from Kishore Bharati magazine. Nonte Fonte gained maximum popularity after its solo book release compared to its earlier publication in the magazine.
Following this trend, Bantul and Hada Bhoda were also published as separate books for a significant number of years, whereas previously they were part of magazines.
Among Narayan Debnath's extensive body of work, these three series, especially Bantul and Nonte Fonte,
stood out, and their fan following is unparalleled to this day. They have become cult classics, and their
absence in new adventures and stories is deeply felt. It wasn't that comedy was his only favourite genre of work.
He was a big fan of thriller series and always aspired to create his own detective stories. Soon, he began illustrating a series based on Indrajit Roy aka the highly popular pulp hero, Black Diamond. These works fell under the adventure genre. According to many readers,
Black Diamond is still considered the best Bengali pulp comic to date, although the stories in this series were written by another author, Dilip Chatterjee.
Debnath's long-standing desire to write and illustrate a full-fledged thriller series materialized in 1975
when he created his own detective character named Goyenda Koushik Roy. Koushik Roy was a spy agent of the Indian government trained in martial arts and possessed a mechanical hand with various powers, such as acting as an iron fist, long iron claws, and a laser beam spitter.
Goyenda Koushik received a warm response from the audience and continued as the cover story of Suktara magazine for many years. Debnath even created a crossover between his characters in one issue. In the Goyenda Koushik series,
Debnath explored various cinematic elements. From an artistic standpoint, many consider this series to be his best work. He meticulously designed each frame using cinematic shot division, following camera angles
commonly seen in movies—
close-ups, long shots, wide angles, wrote strong one liner dialogues. Narayan literally incorporated everything, designed high-octane action sequences following western standards, and developed a style of drawing heroic and realistic human figures for the series.
Debnath drew inspiration
from vintage Hollywood thrillers, Bruce Lee films, Tarzan series, his imagination, and his skill.
Among Narayan Debnath's other works are the popular comic series "Bahadur Beral" for Suktara during the 80s, "Potolchand the Magician," and "Lalu Bhulu."
He also created another comic series called "Danpite Khadu aar taar Chemical Dadu," and “Petuk Master Batuklal” which was likely one of his final series. Referring to his earlier works, shortly after the success of Hadu Bhoda,
he created a female spinoff of the series called "Sutki Mutki." It was based on a similar context and featured two female protagonists. However, its publication was discontinued due to objections raised by some readers.
Among his serious works for seniors, "Heerer Taira" for Nobokkol gained popularity. His complete comic biographical works on Swami Vivekananda, Rabindranath Tagore's childhood, Shivaji, and the tales of Gautam Buddha and Jataka received much appreciation.
He also illustrated comic series based on historical stories such as "Itihaaser Doiroth", as well as science fiction stories set in space and on other planets. Additionally, he worked on adaptations of Bankim Chandra's "Durgeshnandini" and many more projects.
In addition to comics, Narayan Debnath has also illustrated numerous popular books by esteemed authors, designed book covers, & even created movie posters & title calligraphy. He designed covers for books written by U Roychowdhury, Abol Tabol by Sukumar Ray, Nabakallol magazine,
"Thakumar Jhuli," "Bajpakhi," and other popular pulp series by the legendary Swapan Kumar. He also worked on the "Harshavardhan Gobardhan" series by Shibram Chakraborty, as well as translations of popular English classics like much popular "Adventures of Tarzan,"
Gulliver's Travels," "Robin Hood," "Trials of the Sea," "David Copperfield," "Three Musketeers," and many more. His film works included "Ishwarer
Mrittyu," "Hawa Bodol," "Bedini," and others.
(END OF PART II)
(To be continued)
Here is the link for the Part I, which you can checkout for a recap. 🔗🔗
(Thank you)
(Rights of the pictures used in the thread belong to it's artist)
https://t.co/1mS99OFMPD
Not a close friendship, neither a duel. But a complex connection, taking twists through cheering for mutuals to clashes, & differences, a respectful extraordinary tie as we look into the bond of Indian cinema icons, Satyajit Ray & Ritwik Ghatak.🧵
Face of Indian cinema globally and filmmaker’s filmmaker, pillar of parallel cinema. While Ray has spoken about storytelling, human emotions, diverse narration, Ghatak has made statements on subaltern society, offbeat norms, introduced new technicalities & evocative commentary.
Different languages of cinema, but the duo had a very interesting set of equations in reality. Ray recalls meeting Ghatak first time initially during early film society meets. Ghatak heard Ray had been making a film for years, gathering little funding with multiple halts
Kachagolla Kotha 🧵😋
Subtle, simple & elegant this close dry sibling of Roshogolla has been celebrated across ages, with a dedicated royal following from Rani Bhabani to Queen Victoria, hailed among the best of Bengal's sweet platter, from Rabindranath to Sanjeev Kapoor !
carrying even a partition shift in its journey too. The thrilling trace of Kachagolla has its own legacy!
Historically, finest Kachagolla is said to have originated & popularised from Natore, as legend say, later spread to Bongaon as its hub in Bengal with a partition connect.
The origin story of Natore’s Kachagolla too isn’t very different from Jobhora or Roshogolla, much coincidental wonder to say. The origin story is tied to a century-old sweet shop run by Madhusudhan Pal in Natore, when one day his workers were absent.
Long before Khudiram, Kolkata saw its first extreme penalty in a controversial conspiracy trial under colonial rule in 1700s against a Bengali king, over a pearl necklace, so much so that Bengalis took a dip in Ganga in his remembrance!
Maharaja Nandakumar Roy, the philanthropic noble native Bengali king, was made the purposeful victim of a judicial conspiracy by the colonial administration to take down his rising influence, the first of its kind in Bengal, yet he did not give up, showing incredible valour.
It was mainly the tussle between Hastings and Nandakumar, and the equation of power, which marked Kolkata’s first ill-famed judicial assassination. Nandakumar originally hailed from Birbhum’s Bhadrapur. His father served as Amin to Murshid Quli Khan.
What connects 18 time Grand Slam champion, 7 time Olympian, tennis icon of India, Leander Paes, directly to the 19th century maverick Bengali playwright Michael Madhusudan Dutta, and to Jessore & Madras? Sounds impossible, let’s connect the dots
Michael Madhusudan Dutta’s ancestry hails from Jessore, Bangladesh, from village of Sagardahi. His father was a wealthy aristocrat, a well known advocate in Dewani Court, proficient in Persian, which earned him both possessions and popularity.
Influenced by colonial lifestyle & culture, Madhusudan embraced Christianity after coming to Kolkata, joining Hindu College, for which he was eventually debarred from his ancestry. In 1848, finding limited opportunities, Dutta moved to Madras for a living.
Not only the meat-loving monk, Swami Vivekananda’s foodie voyage goes far beyond. From running food clubs to experimenting with recipes and hyping Indian cuisine abroad, this is a take on the culinary enigma of Swamiji.
On Vivekananda’s death, a popular daily wrote, The meat-loving monk passes away! A close associate of his jokingly remarked that he had preached Vedanta & biryani equally abroad. Swami Vivekananda considered physical activity & proper diet as two core principles of survival,
hence, he never imposed any dietary restrictions, rather endorsed variety & food freedom himself was an explorer of cuisines. It's said after giving diksha to followers, Swamiji first remarked, “From today you are free to eat all the 36 types of rice dishes with meat and fish!”
When Bengal's iconic Kirtan caught Jesus's message 🧵🎄
If you visit Nadia on a winter morning, then you would probably come across a band of singers singing kirtan across the roads, but not of Lord Krishna or Chaitanya Dev, rather addressed to Jesus Christ !
Indeed, there exists a separate musical segment in Bengal of verse kirtan dedicated to Christ in Bengali, known as Khrishto Kirtan or Jisshu Pala Kirtan.During winter, these singers, with their harmonium, kartal, flute, sing these kirtans in morning processions across roads.
From a distance, tunes may sound similar to prevalent popular Vaishnav kirtan, but on closer listening, it's seen the lyrics are dedicated to Jesus, tales from his life. Lyrics like “Ishonandan Jishu Bhobe holen abotaar.” But how indigenous Vaishnav kirtan get its Jesus version?