Years after “Sonar Kella” — the first Feluda adventure filmed by Satyajit Ray — was released, Soumitra Chatterjee recalled a conversation between him and the master filmmaker which gave him a peek into the director’s mind.

In the course of that interaction, which had taken place on a train during a journey to shoot outdoor, Chatterjee realised that Ray had created Feluda with some of his own traits — no-nonsense, suave and intuitive with a razor-sharp mind. It was therefore, a huge responsibility to portray Feluda on screen, Chatterjee had said, since it was akin to playing Ray himself.

If Feluda gave Bengali readers a home-grown Sherlock Holmes, it was Chatterjee who brought him alive on screen. Chatterjee looked as convincing outwitting criminals with his “magajastra” (brainpower) as he did when he pulled out his colt revolver to fire at them. Like Feluda, Soumitra could switch from being intelligent to aggressive.

The change in demeanour was marvellously portrayed by Chatterjee in numerous scenes but it was perhaps most evident in a particular sequence in “Joy Baba Felunath”, says Ujjal Chakraborty, a Ray scholar.

In the scene where Feluda, with Topshe and Lalmohan Babu, visits Maganlal Meghraj’s house in Benaras, Chatterjee begins on a polite note but at the end of an unpleasant exchange, he acts sternly with his adversary and vows revenge. “Even as he talks tough, Chatterjee’s body language and dialogue delivery never cross the limits of decency. That’s how Ray had conceived Feluda — an intellectual, middle-class sleuth who could be tough without getting physical or offensive,” Chakraborty says.

For Bengalis growing up in the 70s and 80s, Chatterjee remains Feluda. “Sonar Kella was released in 1974, a decade after the first Feluda story was written. By then, an entire generation had got used to the sketches which portrayed a leaner Feluda with a bonier face. Chatterjee had a more round face but his hooked nose, arched eyebrows and the subtle creases on his face gave him a thinking, intellectual look. It reflected his thoughtful, poetic nature that had made Ray cast him in the role,” Chakraborty said.