Inspirations for Satyajit Ray, Rakshit Shetty & Jagga Jasoos | #199
+ Fun Facts about Bawarchi 👉👉
Hello friends
In a tribute to the imaginative world of Jules Verne, the Danish newspaper Politiken launched a competition, exclusively inviting teenage boys to embark on a grand adventure: a solo journey around the globe within a strict time frame of 46 days, with the stipulation of avoiding air travel. From a flood of enthusiastic entries emerged a young victor, 15-year-old Palle Huld. Employed as a clerk in a car dealership, Huld seized this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, setting off on a voyage that would etch his name in the annals of history. His travels whisked him through many countries, culminating in a return to Copenhagen after 44 days, where he was greeted by an exultant crowd of 20,000 admirers. Capturing his odyssey in the pages of "A Boy Scout Around the World," Huld shared his enthralling experience with the world.
This extraordinary tale resonated with Georges Remi, a young Belgian, stirring his creativity to conceive a character who, decades later, continues to be celebrated at the age of 95, embodying the spirit of adventure and the allure of the unknown. This week’s newsletter is dedicated to Tintin and some interesting connections to India.
Things we learnt this week 🤓
Satyajit Ray was a big Tintin fan and had many references to Tintin peppered in his Feluda books and other movies. In the film version of ‘Jai Baba Felunath’, the final piece of the puzzle comes from Titin and the Broken Ear. In “A Killer in Kailash”, which is part of Ray’s Feluda series, the narrator is reading ‘Tintin in Tibet’. And Topshe is seen reading ‘Land of the Black Gold’ in the Feluda movie ‘Sonar Kela’. Tintin’s Bengal connection goes far deeper than Satyajit Ray’s love for the series. Checkout An Adventure in Howrah: A rendering of Tintin in Kolkata by Mahafuj Ali:
Since we are talking about Bengal’s love for Tintin, Anurag Basu made a film called Jagga Jasoos, which is about an orphan boy who’s only contact with his adoptive father is through a video cassette. A blogger, Sagaran, watched the trailer and was able to deduce many Easter Eggs and “inspirations” from Tintin in the film - the most obvious being that Ranbir Kapoor has a pronounced quiff very similar to Tintin. Anurag Basu admitted that he read Tintin as a child and was certainly inspired by it - but the quiff was a mere coincidence. Take a look and you decide.
Talking of film characters inspired by Tintin, Rakshit Shetty’s Avane Srimannarayana was described by the director as a “Southern odd fiction film”. The film is about a corrupt police officer who takes on a bandit chief to recover a lost treasure. The bandit chief hires a treasure hunter called Harishchandra. This character wears a hat much like Thomson and Thompson and acts like the grandson of Professor Calculus.
From IWTK, with love 💌
On our Instagram, we have some questions for you to attempt - What is common to the following folks?
Jaya Bachchan felt that Rajesh Khanna acted as if he was Jawaharlal Nehru during the making of this iconic film. Know more here.
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