Adapting Sherlock Holmes in an Indian setting is a daunting task. Aniruddha Guha took up the challenge not only as one of the writers of the show but also the Creator. Titled Shekhar Home and directed by Srijit Mukherji and Rohan Sippy, the show sees Kay Kay Menon play the lead and it is currently streaming on JioCinema. In an exclusive interview with Bollywood Hungama, Guha looks back at his experience of bringing the show alive and more.
EXCLUSIVE: Shekhar Home creator Aniruddha Guha reveals, “Kay Kay Menon agreed for the show even when the script was being developed”
How did the journey of Shekhar Home begin?
The producers, BBC Studios India, got in touch with me to see if I’d be up for adapting the Sherlock Holmes stories for the Indian audience, Initially, I was a bit skeptical because there have been several adaptations of Holmes’s adventures around the world, and if you have nothing new to say within that framework there’s no point in doing another version. I went back and read the original works by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and realized that there was a certain old-world charm to them.
Using those original stories as the base, I started developing a fresh take on the detective stories along with director Srijit Mukherjee, co-writer Niharika Puri, and the BBC creative team. We repurposed the world, plot lines, characters, and set the series in the early 90s, when technology wasn’t as advanced as today. Forensics, blood splatter analysis, surveillance, etc, wasn’t common then – especially in the small town the story’s set in. The protagonist Shekhar Home’s skills of deduction were better served in that set-up. Once we knew we had a fresh take to offer, we dove headlong into the writing.
What was the biggest challenge while adapting the Sherlock Holmes stories in an Indian setting?
I didn’t see the adaptation as a challenge. Instead, it was massively exciting to play around with tropes that come attached with the world of Sherlock Holmes, and the detective genre in general. With Shekhar Home, we wanted to bring back the simplicity of investigative stories and make it light and engaging, which Doyle’s stories intrinsically allowed us to do.
The challenge – if at all – was to give the Sherlock Holmes canon a fresh twist. For some reason, there was a perception among people that this series is a remake of the Benedict Cumberbatch-led Sherlock, which itself was an adaptation of Doyle’s stories. What Stephen Moffat and Mark Gatiss – the creators of Sherlock – did was incredible. But the idea was never to replicate that, and to create an indigenous, innovative take on Doyle’s works.
We took some wild swings with Doyle’s stories like ‘The Red-Headed League’, ‘The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual’ and ‘The Final Problem’, which might seem outlandish to ardent fans. But thankfully, those have now turned into the series’ biggest USPs. While some viewers are being able to guess how things might pan out in some stories, the larger feedback has been: “We didn’t see that coming”. And that’s always a good thing at a time when the audience has seen it all.
Why did you think Kay Kay Menon was the best fit to play Shekhar Home?
Thankfully, Kay Kay Menon had agreed to play Shekhar Home on principle even when the scripts were being developed. The understanding was that if we cracked the scripts, he’d sign up. And his response after reading the Episode 1 Screenplay was positive from the get-go. Kay Kay is one of the few actors in the country who has the luxury to choose the stories he wants to be part of. So, him being excited about the material was a great boost to the writing team.
Even Ranvir Shorey was onboard from the start. Both leads were very involved, and the material began to come alive during the script reads with them. Their experiences and insights helped the characters evolve on page in the days leading up to the shoot, and on set too. Watching their process; the rapport they built while performing scenes, their improvisations, their respect for the written word – it was all very fascinating to witness. In fact, we got lucky with the entire cast. Rasika Dugal, Kirti Kulhari, Shernaz Patel, Rudranil Ghosh, Kaushik Sen, etc; the entire ensemble made an impact.
The story is based in Kolkata. How did you make sure that people are not reminded of Feluda or Byomkesh Bakshi?
Srijit was very clear that the story had to be set in Bengal. No one understands the milieu better than him, and we agreed that it wasn’t a backdrop greatly explored in our stories. We knew that the audiences might cling to parallels between Shekhar Home and homegrown Bengali detectives like Byomkesh Bakshi and Feluda. But instead of shying away from them, we chose to embrace them. Over time, the series evolved into a sort of homage to not just Doyle’s works, but also to our desi Bengali sleuths and the detective genre as a whole.
How was it working with dialogue writer Vaibhav Vishal?
Vaibhav has been a friend from before either of us turned scriptwriters, and we’d been wanting to collaborate on the right project. Somehow things got aligned on Shekhar Home. Our personal rapport spilled on to the writing, and we peppered the scripts with pop culture references we both loved. Some of my favourite lines in the show include hat-tips to literature and Hindi cinema – those came naturally to us. For the sixth episode, which revolves around a treasure hunt dealing with Rabindranath Tagore’s life, Vaibhav decided to take a stab at writing an original poem, ‘Kahaan chhipe ho Tagore’, which gave us a lot of freedom to hit the high points we wanted to in the finale.
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