Shekhar Home review
Shekhar Home review: There will someday be a great desi re-imagining of the iconic Holmes. The Kay Kay Menon, Ranvir Shorey-starrer is not it.
Shekhar Home borrows freely from the canons of Arthur Conan Doyle’s immortal sleuth Sherlock Holmes and such Bengali gumshoes as Feluda and Byomkesh Bakshi
for its six-part perambulations, set mostly in the fictional town of Lonpur in West Bengal in the early 90s, foraying briefly in neighbouring Bihar, before fetching up in Calcutta.
With Kay Kay Menon playing the titular character minus the peaked cap-and-pipe plus the strongly self-satisfied air that has wreathed every iteration of the detective, and Ranvir Shorey as his reluctant wingman, this should have, by all rights,
been a cracker. But except for a few stray moments which make you pay attention, this BBC Studio Productions show plods along, throwing out feeble stabs at danger and intrigue.
There’s something to be said about folks ambling about in that archaic non-cellphone era in sylvan surroundings. It works well for Shekhar Home with his seemingly inexhaustible supply of colourful ‘baatik’ kurtas (nice touch) and the uncanny ability to suss out the deep, dark motivations of humans with murder in their hearts.
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The ensemble promises much. There’s Shorey as Jayvrat Sahni, an ex-Army doctor in search of healing, who finds himself attached to Home as they go about solving their ‘cases’; Rudranil Ghosh as Laha the champion bumbler-cum-cop, sporting a crocodile thin moustache and general air of befuddlement; Kaushik Sen as Mrinmay, Home’s brother who has a proper ‘entry’ into the series; Shernaz Patel as local innkeeper Mrs Hudson aka Mrs H; Rasika Dugal as the luminous Irabaty who causes a tremor in Home’s heart; and Kirti Kulhari as the mystery woman in black.
The writing is flaccid (credits shared by Aniruddha Guha, Vaibhav Vishal and Niharika Puri), and there are so many stretches where nothing seems to happen that I found it hard to stay invested in these stories peopled by killers roaming about with poisonous pills, inept bank-robbers burrowing under old buildings, headless ghosts, sex-scandals and blackmailers. It looks like there’s lots of stuff going on, but really nothing you can latch onto and follow until the bitter end.
Menon works hard at being enigmatic-and-laconic-and-brilliant, strumming a stringed instrument at unearthly hours,and erupting in thin chuckles when a breakthrough is near. Shorey does a fair job of his Watson. Dugal’s appearance, and Home’s being instantly taken-in with her, perked me up. The last two episodes start getting pacier, with scientists involved in top-secret doings and shoot-outs in deserted ruins, but that is too little, too late.
There will someday be a great desi re-imagining of the iconic Holmes. This one is not it.
Shekhar Home
Shekhar Home cast: Kay Kay Menon, Ranvir Shorey, Rasika Dugal, Kaushik Sen, Rudranil Ghosh, Shernaz Patel, Kirti Kulhari, Dibyendu Bhattacharya
Shekhar Home directors: Srijit Mukherji, Rohan Sippy
Shekhar Home rating: 2 stars
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