The coalmine murder

Hello everyone! My first story, The Marlok Mystery was appreciated by my friends and family. This led to this story. This story is a fan fiction. Fan fiction basically means that I write a fictional story about a character that has been created by another author.

In the recent times, I have been reading a lot of Bengali fiction, particularly Bengali detective novels. I have been reading Feluda and Byomkesh Bakshi and am pretty much obsessed with them. So, I decided to write my first fan fiction as a Byomkesh Bakshi one.

So, something about Byomkesh. Byomkesh doesn’t really like to be called a detective. He calls himself Satyanveshi or seeker of truth. Byomkesh Bakshi is a character created by Saradindu Bandyopadhyay. His stories are narrated by Ajit, his companion and best friend. All stories are written from Ajit’s point of view. Unlike most detectives, Satyanveshi is married. His wife is Satyavati, whom he met during his 5^th mystery. Byomkesh deals with really interesting mysteries and solves them with great efficiency. This story is set in the 1950s in Calcutta. Hope you enjoy it. I will be posting 3 parts.

Prologue

Smita Sanyal was a simple, ordinary girl born into an orthodox family. But she had something special about her. Smita had an oval face with jet black eyes, a delicate nose and pink lips. She was fair and tall. Her hair was curly and reached till her waist. Smita was her father’s favourite child. She was born in a rich Brahmin family. It was not encouraged for girls to be educated at that time, but Smita’s father was keen on getting Smita educated. Hence, Smita was educated till her 10^th grade after which a calamity struck. Smita’s father died in a car accident. She had been extremely close to her father and he had been her only support in this conservative environment. She was deeply affected by his death.Her life came to a standstill. Smita had always loved studying and wanted to pursue business. But she also knew that all of this would be close to impossible after her father’s death. Her dreams were shattered.

She was forced to drop out of school and concentrate on household chores, a duty that each woman was expected to do. But Smita was not happy. She secretly borrowed books on Economics and Accountancy from the National Library and read them. She hoped to run away some day. She was still keen on pursuing her dream.

After her father’s death, Smita’s elder brother,Suryakumar had taken up the role of the head of the family. He had conservative views just like the rest of the family and thought that Smita should be married off. So, Smita was married off to Bijoy Banerjee, a man from a revoted Brahmin family, who had a successful business of coal mining. Bijoy was everything Smita wasn’t. He was foolish and had no respect for his wealth. He was not a particularly good-looking man. He had a dusky complexion with brown eyes, a fat nose and thick lips. If it had not been for his father, Bijoy would have been on the streets today. His father had handed over his business as well as all his wealth to Bijoy after his death. But Bijoy did not know how to handle business. Bijoy had a brother, named Anukul. But,Anukul had never had a good relationship with his father. Anukul wanted to be an actor, but Bijoy’s father, Gagan babu did not consider acting a respectable profession. Anukul had argued with Gagan babu repeatedly, and had ultimately left the house. Smita did not like Bijoy at the very first sight. She tried hard to adjust with his family.

But Smita did not love Bijoy. He was a fool and just not good enough for her. After Bijoy’s father’s death, he was the owner of the company. But,he was not business-minded and did not understand how to run the business. Soon, the business started to suffer losses. At this point, Smita decided to step in and advise her husband on how he could improve the condition of the business. Smita knew almost everything about the company, for she read Bijoy’s business files and accounts while he was away at office.

Bijoy, however did not like Smita’s intervention into his business matters. He always thought that women were meant to be a part of only household chores and did not have business-minded brains. He got really annoyed at Smita’s suggestion and told her to just go to the kitchen and do her household chores. Smita was an obedient person and did not know how to reply back. She used to listen to Bijoys suggestions but never paid heed to them. She did not stop giving suggestions.

Bijoy was a short-tempered and arrogant man. He strongly disliked Smita’s interference in his business matters and often had arguments with her and ordered her to stop giving suggestions.

Even after giving warnings repeatedly, when Smita did not stop, Bijoy took an extreme step.

One evening, after coming back from the office, Bijoy was really angry. As Smita took the cup of tea to his room, she heard him shout at her. He was really angry. He started yelling at her and started blaming her for his current condition. He started telling her how his company was in major loss and how he thought that she was responsible for this. Smita stood calm, still as a statue. But Bijoy didn’t stop. He continued to shout. His anger gradually reached a point when he tried to hurt Smita. He put his hands on her neck and tried to choke her. With great difficulty, Smita got out of his hold and escaped from the room.

The next morning the police arrested Bijoy. It seems he had done indulged in unfair practices and had been involved in a black money scandal. Perhaps he had the fear of getting caught last night which might have led to his violent behavior. He was imprisoned for 10 years.

Meanwhile, Smita took control of the family business and helped it scale new heights.

The Main Story

(10 years later)

“The doctor says she’s been killed due to heart failure. But the body’s gone for a postmortem and we can have proper clarity on the cause of death only after that. But the strange thing is that she had a movie ticket in her hand. Also, there are 5 bundles of 100 rupee notes which were found around her dead body. She takes care of all operations in the mine, but no one knows what she was doing alone in the mine on a Sunday.”, said Inspector Biren.

Byomkesh, Biren babu and I were sitting in Byomkesh’s hall, sipping tea and discussing about a recent death. The victim was a woman called Smita Sanyal, the owner of one of the most prosperous coal mines in Bengal. Biren babu had come to our residence to discuss about this case and had requested Byomkesh to investigate this strange case. It appeared a natural death but there was certainly something fishy about it.

Byomkesh said, “It certainly appears to be a strange case. I would want to see the dead body. Can we go now? I hope nothing has been disturbed at the site of the death.”

Biren babu replied, “No Byomkesh babu, I thought it wouldn’t be right to start the discovery of truth without the Satyanveshi (seeker of truth) .”

Byomkesh let out a smile.

We quickly got ready to visit the Koyala Coal Mine. At first I was surprised to hear that a woman ran the coal mine. On our way to the mine, Biren babu told us Smita Sanyal’s story and how her husband had treated her. He stopped at the part when Bijoy babu was arrested as we reached the mine. I was really impressed by Smita’s willpower and was really sad to see her die as I would have wanted to meet a woman who had such a remarkable personality.

(To be continued)

This is a picture from the 1990s show Byomkesh Bakshi which aired on Doordarshan.

It starred Rajit Kapur as Byomkesh Bakshi and KK Raina as Ajit.

(Its an amazing show! Watch it if you are a fan of mystery)