Abir Chatterjee – Detective Byomkesh Bakshi of present-generation Bengali cinema

Abir Chatterjee is an Indian actor who predominantly works in Bengali cinema, and mostly portrays lead roles. He is best known for playing detective in many movies. He was initially associated with Bengali television before moving to big screen. Ruposhi Bangla, Shasuri Zindabad, Proloy Asche and Khuje Berai Kacher Manush are some of his popular roles on mini screen.

2009 movie Cross Connection marked his big screen debut in second lead role, and he emerged as a solo hero with the first movie of director Hrid Majharey. He played the titular role of detective Byomkesh Bakshi in several movies of the same series, directed by Anjan Dutt and Arindam Sil. He also played Bengali detective Feluda in a few movies.

A television actor turned film actor

Abir Chatterjee was born in Kolkata, West Bengal in 1980. Both his parents, Falguni Chatterjee and Rumki Chatterjee were theatre artists, and following their footsteps he too reached the field of acting. He drew a lot of inspirations from his father, who has always encouraged his acting career. He is married to Nandini Chatterjee since 2007 and the couple has one daughter. He acted in several TV serials and established in this field before moving to big screen. ‘Pralay Asche’ directed by Raj Chakraborty was his first TV show, where he played a rough and tough cop. Later he became a part of several investigation and mystery thrillers of the decade of 2010s.

Apart from Byomkesh Bakshi series, he appeared in hit/award winning movies like The Royal Bengal Tiger, Asur, Durgeshgorer Guptodhon, Tritiya Adhyay, Bishorjan etc. Nowadays he experiments with negative shaded roles too. His role as an egoist husband with grey shades in 2020 release, Asur was well received. He shared screen space with Jeet Madnani and Nusrat Jahan in this highly praised film. He played the antagonist in 2019 movie, Bornoporichoy, a neo-noir thriller.

Abir shared screen space with Jeet in 2020 movie, Asur

He is mostly associated with films belonging to detective, mystery and thriller genres, and has tasted success in all of them. He has also done adventurous thrillers, romantic thrillers and multiple treasure hunt films. His thriller movies such as Meghnad Badh Rahasya, Bornoporichoy, Guptodhoner Sandhane etc received negative reviews. Agantuk, Maayakumari and 72 Ghanta are his upcoming movies.

Abir Chatterjee in Byomkesh Bakshi series

His lead role as a detective in Byomkesh Bakshi series played an important role in his profession career. After debuting with Cross Connection in 2009, he played his first lead role in the next film. He played detective Byomkesh Bakshi in Anjan Dutt’s Byomkesh Bakshi in 2010, followed by Abar Byomkesh (2012) and Byomkesh Phire Elo (2014) by the same director. Later Arindam Sil directed him in Har Har Byomkesh (2015) and Byomkesh Pawrbo (2016). Biday Byomkesh (2018) is yet another detective thriller starring Abir, and it was scripted and directed by Debaloy Bhattacharya.

Abir Chatterjee – Some interesting and less-known facts

1. He has a deep cut on his right cheek. He was studying in class 7 when he met with a silly accident which left him with this mark. While he was riding his bicycle on a rainy day, a cat tried to cross the road, and Abir lost control. The handle of the bicycle gave him the mark.

2. He appeared in 3 of the 4 Anjan Dutt movies in Byomkesh Bakshi series. The final one starred Jisshu Sengupta as Byomkesh Bakshi, and the movie titled Byomkesh Bakshi was released in 2015.

3. He holds an MBA degree from the ICFAI Business School, Hyderabad. He also has a B.Com degree.

4. He made a special appearance as Arup Basu in Hindi hit thriller – Kahani. It’s his single appearance for any other language film except Bengali.

5. He is a die-hard fan of Bollywood star Big B. Whenever he gets opportunity to deliver Hindi punch dialogues in Bengali movies, he tries to adopt Amitabh style and also his baritone voice.

6. He is a huge fan of Sachin Tendulkar and inspired from him, he wanted to become a cricketer during his teens. He is a fan of Brian Lara too.

7. Originally from a family of theatre artists, he founded a theatre group named ‘Lokkrishti’.

8. He met his future wife Nandini Chatterjee, while doing his MBA studies, and later they got married. Though this dashing hero has a huge female fan following crowd, he is known as a family man.