A teaser for a Bengali web series on Satyajit Ray’s fictional detective Feluda has stirred up a controversy. Director Sandip Ray had sold the rights of 35 Feluda stories for a television series in Bangladesh. The precondition was that the series would not be shown in India. According to a The Times of India report, Ray was shocked to find the Bengali teaser of a web series uploaded by Addatimes.com.
Rajiv Mehra, founder of Addatimes.com, told the publication that he had bought the rights from Shahriar Shakil, the producer of the Bangladeshi series. “We didn’t approach Sandip Ray,” he said. “When we came to know about the deal in Bangladesh, we approached Kandy Productions Ltd, which has the rights of the Feluda stories in Bangladesh and struck the deal with Shakil.”
Ray, on the other hand, said he thought he had sold the rights for a TV series. “My surprise was not related to the way Feluda has been presented here,” he told Times of India. “I was shocked to find that Kolkata-based Addatimes had uploaded a teaser of a web series that will be available to Indian viewers. That’s because I had sold the rights for making a television series in Bangladesh on the condition that it will not be shown in India.”