IJELLH Volume 6, Issue 12, December 2018 514

Sunit Kumar Barui

Doctoral Research Scholar

Seacom Skills University

Arambagh, West Bengal, India

Sunitbarui17@gmail.com

Detective Stories of Satyajit Ray: Detecting the Major

Issues in Marketing and Branding

Abstract: Most recently literary -critical theory has taken a cultural turn and is seen to be

intermittently bombarded by interests in media, communication and commerce in a glocal

environment, which encourages cross-disciplinary approaches to fictional writings as cultural

artefacts, with a palpable presence in the culture industry. As marketable products their

production and consumption are determined by the dynamics of market. Satyajit Ray, a film

director, music composer and a graphic designer par excellence, had intimate and long-

standing experience of arts-commerce interaction, as well as of market volatility. Therefore it

would not be a far-fetched conceptual daredevilry to assume that his each and every move in

the whole artistic process, right from the conception to the execution of intricate plotting and

characterization was consciously motivated by commercial gains. He had to survey the

demand, deliberate on the mode of supply, draw on consumer psychology, build up brands,

promote his products, and last, but not the least, he had to remain ultra-sensitive towards

consumer response and consumer satisfaction. This article is a modest endeavour to read a

select detective stories of Satyajit Ray in English translation, from the perspectives of brand

and marketing management. It essays to apply a few key concepts of marketing and brand
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management to these stories that supposedly belong to the ‘genre’ or ‘commercial’ or simply

‘popular’ fiction category.

Key Words: detective, popular, genre, market, brand, management

Satyajit Ray’s whodunit stories and novellas feature Pradosh Mitter alias Feluda as a Bengali

professional detective, Tapeshranjan alias Topse, his cousin-cum-satellite companion as a

chronicler of his cases and a Watson-like assistant of the sleuth, and Lalmohanbabu alias

Jatayu, a bestselling thriller writer, as also a mystery-seeking, thriller-loving associate of

Feluda. Ray launched his detective stories, more in the vein of an experiment, in a serial

form, in an already famous children’s illustrated monthly vernacular magazine named

Sandesh in 1960s. Ray’s father Sukumar Ray, and his grandfather Upendrakishor Ray were

also prolific writers and versatile genius, though they were popularly branded as storytellers

and poets for children. The Rays had their own press and publishing company from where

they published and marketed their own literary products as well those by other writers.

Therefore there is no denying the fact that Ray himself was brought up a little on the diet of a

homespun literary stuff for children and that he acquired firsthand knowledge of what to

write, how to write and also how to market the literary contents for guaranteed and instant

sale. He himself contributed, edited and designed the graphics for Sandesh issues. His

education and formative influences under which he matured as a literary artist, bore visible

western leanings. Since his early childhood Ray was an avid reader of Sherlock Holmes

stories and he highly appreciated Tintin comic strips. Being cognizant of what was happening

abroad in the domain of culture and culture industry he realized the need for diversification in

the literary field in Bengal. As the rate of literacy started to escalate around 1950s the number

of young readers was also increasing significantly. The readers of the Sandesh edited by

Sukumar Roy were now reaching at the threshold of adolescence. It was obvious that they
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would no longer be content with limericks, folktales, legends or children’ fantasy stuff. They

were eager to encounter gritty reality with their own eyes and ears by tactfully bypassing

adult interventions. They wanted to relish the thrill of growing up by either seeing through

the surface calm and order or by trying to redress the almost normalized wrongs, inequalities

and deprivations with or without minimal adult guidance.The detective adventure stories of

the kind penned by Hemendra Kumar Roy were already welcome among teenage readers.

The commercial success of young adult fiction (taking only the target readership and the

narrative tone in view, not necessarily in terms of the age and experience of the protagonists,

for they are not always teenagers themselves) was a fresh impetus to Satyajit Ray, who

started recognizing the potential growth in the niche market. Circulation of such little

magazines like ‘Mukul’, ‘Mauchak’ , Shishu Sathi’ and even ‘ Shuktara’, though gained in

popularity, failed to churn out dedicated literary content for teenagers. Bhibhutibhusan

Bandyopadhyay’s ‘ Chander Pahar’ was a feat of pure literary imagination.The tale of

Shankar’s expedition is loaded with intense action that can keep a reader of any age on the

edge of terrible uncertainty. It is a surfeit of virtual adrenalin release. Here suspense was

unaccompanied by mystery. On the other hand Hemendra Kumar Roy’s Jayanta-Manik-

Sundarbabu trio offers a charming cocktail of adventure-mystery-humour. It was against this

literary backdrop that Satyajit decided to offer a unique reading experience to his target

consumers. He came up with a package, the marketing mantra for which was ‘wholesome

infotainment’ .His product would be such that young readers would not need any alibi for the

conspiracy of reading something which would not pass the moral sanction of their guardians.

Evidently Ray wanted to win the trust of the parents first, and that too was a strategic

investment. Ray’s prefatory note to the collected edition of Feluda stories supports the same

marketing strategy:
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When I wrote my first Feluda story, I scarcely imagined he would prove so popular that I

would be forced to write a Feluda novel every year. To write a whodunit while keeping in

mind a young readership is not an easy task, because the stories have to be kept ‘clean’. No

illicit love, no crime passionel, and only a modicum of violence. I hope adult readers will

bear this in mind when reading these stories. (Ray in the ‘Author’s Note’, Feb, 1988)

Before penetrating further into Ray’s marketing strategy, though on the level of plausible

assumption, we need to stop a bit by the initial concepts of ‘marketing’ and ‘product’. One of

the most important conceptual building blocks of management of any specialization, is the

ideation of ‘marketing’. It is conveniently defined as ‘a social and managerial process by

which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating and

exchanging products and values with others’ (Kotler,). This definition sets marketing apart

from mere selling and advertising. It is a pervasive process that starts with production and

seeps through each and every layer of conveying the product to the actual and prospective

consumer. Marketing comes in whenever and wherever there arises an interaction between

industry and buyer, between resource and want or need or demand. Another seminal concept

in managerial parlance is ‘product’, which again can be broadly defined as ‘a product is

anything that can be offered to a market to satisfy a need or want’ (Kotler). Apart from

goods, and services the term comprises other entities like persons, places, organizations,

activities and ideas. While deciphering the dynamics of market as we read a fictional work,

we can orientate our critical curiosity towards the interpersonal interaction between fictional

characters, depiction of the topographical features and cultural practices, as also to a certain

extent, to the operation of power and ideology, both latent and manifest, as long as these

elements are envisioned by the industry or author to have a definite capacity to satisfy certain

wants in the readers or consumers. Therefore while manufacturing a product due emphasis is

laid not so much on the acquiring or owning the products, rather on the benefits derived or
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values generated by the products. Today’s marketing strategy is customer driven. Focus has

shifted from the earlier paradigm of selling at any cost to the more recently evolved paradigm

of customer satisfaction, thus prioritizing the imperative of retaining existing customers

through brand loyalty. Kotler makes the following observation:

Customer satisfaction depends on a product’s perceived performance in delivering value

relative to a buyer’s expectation……..If the product’s performance falls short of the

customer’s expectations, the buyer is dissatisfied. If performance matches expectations the

buyer is satisfied. If performance exceeds expectations, the buyer is delighted. (Kotler, p, 12)

If in his conscious capacity of a manufacturer of detective fiction Ray had his goal fixed on

customer satisfaction, then the most important component of how to achieve that goal

proceeded from determining the needs and wants of target markets, in conjunction with the

corollary aim of delivering the desired satisfaction more effectively and efficiently than

competitors do. Ray must have made an overview of the contemporary scenario of detective

fiction writing before launching his product in the market. Detective fiction in Bengali went

through a gestation stage through the stilted translation of British detective series named

Sexton Blake and Union Jack into Bengali detective series titled Rahasya Lahari by Dinendra

Kumar Roy. Panchkori Dey wrote under the shadows of Arthur Conan Doyle and Swapan

Kumar’s Bishwachakra serial publications were a peculiar mélange of labored adventures,

and stiflingly formulaic investigations. They did not fare better than potboilers. Detective

fiction of the classical sort matured in the hands of Saradindu Bandyopadhyay through his

Byomkesh Bakshi series. However they were not adventures suited to the tastes of young

adults. Obviously Ray noted a gap between demand and supply .He realized the selling

potential of murder-mystery, as interest in crime and the need for protection from it was

deeply ingrained in human psyche. Ray’s Feluda series, even if divested of their crime and
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investigation components, may produce a veritable corpus of travelogues registered through

the eyes of an adolescent called Topse. The Three Musketeers in Feluda series have travelled

extensively inside India from obscure rural hinterlands to historical tourist sites and places of

spiritual heritage. Ray takes his readers on tours ranging from Puri, Darjeeling, Baranasi,

Haridwar, Delhi, Lucknow, Jaipur, Bombay, Gangtok, and Simla to Nepal, Hongkong, and

even London. He has always refrained from giving a silhouette or rather a bare outline of the

locales as mere expendables in the service of plot construction. He was perhaps motivated by

a morally-pedagogically elevated conviction that young readers must be provided with

something real, practical and useful while navigating through a realm of fiction. Seeing

through photographic lens became a habit with him, due to his prolonged involvement with

direction of motion pictures. Thus he could not help giving a high resolution, nuanced

features of the traces of time on the landmarks, architecture, transport, interior decoration,

leisure, food and dresses of people. Readers can have a sensuous feel of the land and can wax

curious watching peculiarities of each and every individual, be he a protagonist, criminal or a

mere servant or a drunkard. This cinematographic presentation of men and manners and film

script like organization of events was something new to the readers. Along with it were the

occasional references to the whimsical natures of directors, their plagiarism, corrupt

producers, struggling actors and often detailed proceedings of shooting, as in The Bandits of

Bombay. The way events are narrated and characters are presented or their reactions are

captured, resemble major cinematographic techniques like long-shot, close-up, fade out or

wipe. Ray has busted some myths regarding film personalities and has offered insights into

the fleeting nature of public taste and also into the mechanical way stories are adapted for

film versions.

Another significant strategy for stealing a march on his competitors (similar stories available

in the market) is the meticulous branding of the super sleuth, Feluda. His character is an
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assortment of all the virtues and traits that the youths and young adults held and still hold

very dear to their hearts. Let us furnish a workable inventory:

1. Feluda is a fitness freak. (Ref: ‘He (Feluda) never spoke until he had finished every

exercise, including sheershasan. He had started this about six months ago. The result

was noticeable. Felud seemed a lot fitter, and openly admitted that yoga had done him

a world of good’. Vol-1,p,119 )

2. Feluda is an ace shooter. (Ref: ‘Last year Feluda had won the first prize in the All

India Rifle Competition. It was amazing how accurate his aim had become after only

three months of practice’. Vol-1,p,120 )

3. A passionate photographer. (ref: ‘Photography was another passion he had developed

recently’. Vol-1,p,125 )

4. Trained in several martial arts. (ref:’ But he wasn’t just an expert in yoga. He had

learnt ji-jitsu and karate, too’. Vol-1,p,138 )

5. Accomplished painter. (Ref: ‘Feluda could draw very well. In fact, I knew he could

draw a reasonable portrait of a man after seeing him only once’. Vol-1,p,106 )

6. Interest in palmistry.(ref: ‘Feluda did not believe in palmistry, but had read up on the

subject’. Vol-2,p,4 )

7. Fascination for cryptology. Concerned about security of his research data. (Ref: ‘ I (

Feluda) learnt the others from the Encyclopaedia Britannica. If you write something

in English using Greek letters, it sounds like a code. No one could possibly make any

sense of it’. Vol-1,p,59 )

8. Daringly dashing in undertaking hot pursuit. (Ref: ‘Felu Mitter thrives on risks and

danger’. Vol-1,p,79 )

9. Tremendous physical strength. (Ref: ‘Even I was surprised by Feluda’s physical

strength’. Vol-1,p,112 )
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10. Voracious reader. Keen interest in almost all subjects under earth, including the

obscure ones. (Ref: ‘It was imperative, he’d always maintained, for a detective to gain

as much general knowledge as possible. Who knew what might come in handy one

day?’ vol-1,p,143 )

11. Extraordinary control over his nerves. (Ref: ‘I have heard him say that he who can

keep rising anger under control must have far greater will power than someone who

has furious outburst’. Vol-2,p,79 )

Apart from these quite out of the way capacities, Feluda possesses incredible observatory and

deductive faculty. He can single out relevant clues from a baffling array of red herrings. As a

private investigator Feluda maintains a symbiotic relationship with the police. Both the range

and intensity of such outstanding capabilities have made him a celebrity detective as well as a

role model for young readers. He is just what new age youths will aspire to be.

Introduction of the character of Lalmohanbabu has added not just an extra feature, rather a

unique selling factor for Feluda stories. Everything from physical appearance to his gestures

Lalmohanbabu is an embodiment of the comic. Ray initially created him to supply the readers

with sufficient dollops of humour, especially in suspenseful situations, which, instead of

diluting the effect, will intensify it almost unaware. But Lalmohanbabu has slipped out of

Ray’s control and started living in his own terms. Instead of being just a foil to the super

sleuth he has grown to be a god of small things. He voluntarily associates himself with

Feluda for enjoying the thrills of adventures. Another stout rationale for such association is

that he can derive clues and prompts for injecting novelty into his thrillers. Superstitious,

nervous, gullible, ignorant of most things around him, with an eye for publicity and quick

money, Lalmohanbabu represents layman’s point of view towards the ways of the world. He
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treats Feluda and Topse as his younger siblings and patronizes them in several ways, mostly

by letting them use his car whenever necessary. This is also a gesture of recognition of his

debt to Feluda, for obtaining stylistic and thematic scaffolds and timely corrections of

numerous factual misnomers and irregularities, especially when his plot gets stuck up or lacks

in liveliness. Feluda disparages him as a writer who merely thrives on cheap sensation and

grotesque flight of imagination. Lalmohanbabu digests his jibes unprotestingly, because

ultimately he earns more than Feluda in terms of Feluda’s remuneration as investigator. The

fact that fancy generates more revenues than investigative ratiocination, berates Feluda .

Lalmohanbabu is a case of co-branding. Readers aspire to scale the height of Feluda in terms

of deduction and alertness, but fail miserably, and land on the flat familiar terrain of

Lalmohanbabu. They are thus bound to laugh with Lalmohanbabu, instead of laughing at

him, for all his lapses are very commonplace, and therefore, merit forgiveness and tolerance.

Obviously this co-branding strategy appeals to both kinds of readers who feel psychological

affiliations with the two brands-the brainy-brawny Feluda and childlike-fanciful

Lalmohanbabu. The accounts of Feluda’s adventures touted to be real-life cases are as much

thrillers, though with distinct flavor and status-value, as Lalmohanbabu’s mystery writings.

The American Marketing Association (AMA) defines ‘ brand’ as a ‘ name, term, sign,

symbol, or design, or a combination of them, intended to identify the goods and services of

one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of competitors’(Quoted in

Keller,2013 ). Therefore the positioning statement built into Feluda and Lalmohanbabu set

Satyajit Ray’s detective stories apart from other whodunits in market. For many youngsters

detective fiction has become synonymous with Feluda. They consume Feluda series, not

Satyajit Ray’s fictional penmanship, so to say. Even the complementary nature of the two

brands become pronounced through Feluda’s confession:

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And you, my dear friend. We complement each other, don’t we? You’ve been with us

throughout, ever since our visit to Jaisalmer. Why, I don’t suppose any of our readers could

think of me without thinking of you, and vice versa.

(Ray, vol-ii, p, 661)

To treat Satyajit Ray’s detective stories as branded products may seem initially shocking to

traditional readers, but the concept of ‘brand’ has been around us for many centuries. A

branded product may be a physical good like Hindustan Unilever’s soap Lux, or an idea like

‘#Me Too’ or ‘freedom of speech’. Feluda as a brand is more than the product, i,e, detective

fiction. Feluda detective stories offer readers a unique experience of whodunit reading. An

excerpt from a seminal work Strategic Brand Management clarifies the issue further:

The meaning imbued in brands can be quite profound, allowing us to think of the relationship

between a brand and the consumer as a type of bond or pact. Consumers offer their trust and

loyalty with the implicit understanding that the brand will behave in certain ways and provide

them utility through consistent product performance and appropriate pricing, promotion, and

distribution program and action. (Keller, 2013, p, 35)

To stay ahead of the competitors Feluda detective stories come up with additional product

attributes or benefits. Ray has not rendered the geographical locales and its inhabitants

artificially photogenic, rather he depicts it raw, with the original pigments, sights and sounds.

And the purpose is to take the target readers on a virtual trip around those places, which most

readers can not afford to buy due to the restrictions of age, time and finance.

Often Feluda and Jatayu are seen to entertain young readers. And this gesture can be

interpreted as a symbolic promotion of the product or campaigning in modern media

parlance. In the story ‘’ Napoleon’s Letter “ Feluda takes up the challenge thrown by a young
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brat named Aniruddha Halder to catch the thief who took away his pet chandana, and

mollifies the young admirer by a promise to visit his house. Feluda unraveled a greater

mystery but refused to accept remuneration. It signals a complimentary service and puts up a

different front of the familiar brand image. Feluda’s observation goes thus:

No, Mr. Halder. I was not appointed to unravel this mystery, was I? My involvement was

purely by accident, and I happened to have come here only because your son had invited me.

How can I expect a six-year-old child to pay me a fee? (Ray, vol-ii, p, 186)

Customer satisfaction is by far the greatest imperative dictating the marketing strategy.

Marketers harvest customer feedback and carefully analyze it to evaluate the brand’s ongoing

potential. In the short detective story “The mystery of Nayan’’ Feluda is deeply overwhelmed

by readers’ responses through letters:

Feluda’s stories do not sound as interesting as before, they said. Jatayu can no longer make

people laugh. Tapshe’s narrative has lost appeal, etc.etc. (Ray, vol-II, p, 659)

Though Lalmohonbabu’s hackles rise at such unfavourable customer review, Feluda stays

poised and reflects the principle of customer satisfaction:

These readers have given us their support in the past. Now if they tell me the Three

Musketeers have grown old much before their time, I cannot ignore their words. (Ray, vol-II,

p, 660)

After much deliberation Feluda sees through the points of customer dissatisfaction and

proposes several corrective methods for recovering the damage.

This article has so far tried to read the Feluda detective stories, in the manner of an overview,

from an inter-disciplinary perspective that seeks to assess how far the stories are amenable to

the application of certain basic principles of marketing and brand management. This
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approach has been undertaken , even at the risk of being termed newfangled, for it has the

perceptible potential to unearth the various modalities of arts-commerce nexus behind the

production and consumption of literary creations, despite their purported innocence of the

dynamics of a market that is always –already everywhere.

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Works Cited

Ray, Satyajit. The Complete Adventures of Feluda.Trans.Gopa Majumdar.Vol I and II.

Gurgaon:Penguin Random House,2015

Kotler, Philip, et al. Principles of Marketing. New Jersey: Prentice Hall Europe, 1999.web.3

Nov, 2018

Keller, Lane Kevin, et al. Eds. Strategic Brand Management: Building, Meaning, and

Managing Brand Equity.4th ed.London: Pearson, 2013.web.26 Oct, 2018.

Miller, Daniel, ed. Acknowledging Consumption: A Review of New Studies. London and

New York: Routledge, 1995.web.12 Nov, 2018.

Barui, Sunit Kumar. “The Comic in Satyajit Ray’s Detective Fiction’’.IJELLH, Vol v, Issue

ix, Sep 2017.web.4 Nov, 2017

Sen, Arunima. “A Literary History of the Detective Genre in Bengali Literature: From Rig

Veda to Byomkesh Bakshi’’. The Criterion: An International Journal in English,

Vol.8, Isssue-VIII, July 2017.web.12 Nov, 2018