Shadows of the East
Seeking the Indian Sleuth
June 26, 2016
The historical record in America is a dense tapestry of literature, research papers, and archival photographs. While tracing the origins of the legendary Allan Pinkerton, I encountered the story of Kate Warne—the first female detective in the United States. This discovery inevitably turned my attention to the "detective scenario" in my country of birth, India. Growing up in New Delhi, I was immersed in the cultural landscape of English fiction—Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot. The concept of a real Indian detective was entirely foreign to me.
"In a culture where men are habitually granted the status of 'first,' I am choosing to bypass the traditional timeline."
Until quite recently, I was equally unaware of the rich tradition of Indian detectives in literature. My exposure was limited to the carrot-chomping Karamchand from the popular Doordarshan series of the late 1980s. However, after viewing the 2015 film Detective Byomkesh Bakshy!, I was introduced to the literary legacy of Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay, who created the iconic Bengali "truth-seeker" long before he appeared on screen.
These fictional glimpses only whetted my appetite for the historical reality. Ideally, I should have begun this series with the man widely regarded as India’s first private investigator: Ramesh C. Madan. (Ramesh) Yet, in a culture where men are habitually granted the status of "first," I am intimately acquainted with the experience of playing second fiddle. In an act of personal and professional defiance, I am choosing to bypass the traditional timeline. I will begin my search not with the men, but with the woman who broke the mold: Rajani Pandit.