Lately, I’ve been sifting through thousands of photographs of bald men with moustaches. Every day, my mailbox is inundated with envelopes containing these. Some of them have forced comical expressions; others stare clownishly into the camera. Word has got around that I’m on the lookout for a ‘Jotayu’ (the fictional crime writer in the Feluda series)—sadly, no one seems to have grasped what Jotayu is all about. He’s not a comic character, but a sensitive, intelligent man. Yes, there’s a physical type: he has to be short, about 5’5’’, compared to Feluda, who is over six. My only criterion is the actor has to be bloody good with timing. I’m desperate to find the perfect one. And until I do, I won’t make another Feluda film.
Anyway, I consciously avoid making Feluda films too close to one another. The audience should crave for the next instalment, and I too should start missing it. Double Feluda came in 2016, as part of the Fifty Years of Feluda celebrations, so there won’t be one in 2017. We may work on the script or plan the shoots, but it won’t be made before 2018. That, too, provided I find the right Jotayu.