The superlative Kay Kay Menon plays a homegrown, intrepid detective in a sleepy small town in Bengal in the 1990s. Shekhar Home — with the veteran actor playing the titular protagonist — is a riff on Arthur Conan Doyle’s iconic private eye Sherlock Holmes and is all set to premiere on JioCinema on August 14. It also stars Ranvir Shorey as a Dr Watson-ish character named Jayvrat, along with acting powerhouses Rasika Dugal and Kirti Kulhari.

Shot largely in Santiniketan and its surrounding areas in the scorching summer of 2023, Shekhar Home is co-directed by Srijit Mukherji and Rohan Sippy. t2 chatted with Kay Kay — the man we have loved watching for decades on screens big and small — about his latest project.

Shekhar Home, with its trailer, has us sold already!

The series is very simple and yet funny at the same time. It deals with serious stuff like deceit and murder but there is also a supernatural element attached to it. It has been made with a certain lightness of touch... it doesn’t carry the weight of the world, you know. There is intrigue but it is laced with light elements.

That is a very tricky balance to achieve, right?

Oh, I love it! I love it as an actor. While I was trying to get Shekhar out from within me, there were so many instances on set when magic happened while we were filming a scene. It went beyond my design as an actor and happened organically.

Also, a lot of my performance stemmed from my co-actors. The way Ranvir (Shorey) has played Jayvrat and how Rasika (Dugal) has slipped into the part of Iravati is beautiful. Even Kirti (Kulhari) has done such a great job. We had this gang of extremely accomplished actors and that really helped each of our performances. There was no sur that went wrong in this show.

Playing Sherlock Holmes, I am sure, is a dream role for most actors. What about this adaptation intrigued you the most?

I go into every project and every role with a clean slate. While reading a script, I don’t go by the dope that is given to me from outside. I ignore the ‘pre-marketing’ of a script, if you understand what I mean. I read a script with an open mind and without any preconceived notions and if I find myself attracted to it — which is again subjective in nature and I can’t put a yardstick to it — then I say: ‘Okay this is something that has potential and I can contribute to it’.

I never put myself at the mercy of my mind playing the devil’s workshop and trying to impose something else on me. The more I read a script, the more I find myself with it and more often than not, I believe that it will give me something unique.

In the case of this series, the way Shekhar has been written, the scenario he operates in — Lonpur is a small, sleepy town — the era in which it is set, which is the 1990s and hence the pre-mobile phone era, really appealed to me.

Shekhar has his own rhythm and a certain unpredictability and eccentricity. I saw the potential within the script to explore a lot of angles and aspects to him

The notion of the detective is rooted in the Bengali ethos. Shekhar Home is also one. What was your first tryst with a Bengali goyenda, either in cinema or in literature?

There has always been Feluda and Byomkesh which we have all read and watched, though I don’t remember when I first discovered them. As a kid, my first brush with detective fiction was through Enid Blyton’s writing. And then, of course, Arthur Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes came into the picture. I have always been more of a reader than a viewer.

For me, Shekhar is an individual in his own right. I haven’t played him with an eye on any detective, be it Sherlock Holmes or anyone else. My portrayal of him wasn’t clouded by anything from the outside. The moment you take that point of view, then everything opens up in your mind. Then you know that you are playing an individual, that you are not in a crowded space.

You will know what I am talking about when you watch the series. To be honest, I had the same questions when I was offered Shekhar Home. But then I realised how different and how individualistic he is.

How would you describe him?

He is, in a way, an embodiment of Lonpur. As a result, his rhythm and pace are different. He has certain idiosyncrasies. When I was playing him, a few gestures happened organically which became his trademark. He is also very unpredictable in the way he goes about solving cases.

What was the experience of shooting Shekhar Home in the scorching summer of Santiniketan?

First and foremost, kudos to the production team for finding such great locations. Since we had to show a small town in the ’90s, we shot on the outskirts of Bolpur. There is a certain lived-in charm there.

The moment you enter Santiniketan, you can magically feel the air of (Rabindranath) Tagore. The weather was, of course, very tough. We had to shoot in 45°C but I was immersed in my work and I was loving what I was doing. And so, the heat really didn’t get to me that much.

It is our job, after all. A batsman who is on the verge of getting a century hardly feels the heat on the crease. Some people did fall sick, all of us got sun tans, unseasonal rains happened, but it was a really good shoot.

The series is co-directed by Srijit Mukherji and Rohan Sippy. Did that hamper clarity and creativity for you as an actor sometimes?

Srijit and Rohan have their own voices and minds. Different points of view about the same script can be confusing for an inexperienced actor but for us, it was very interesting and gave us avenues to explore our characters. I am used to being directed by two directors. Special Ops is directed jointly by Neeraj (Pandey) and Shivam (Nair).

Even after years of experience in front of the camera, do you find yourself acquiring new skill sets while working on the long-format narrative, which is quite different from cinema?

The calibre of people like us has been explored well on OTT. OTT has the facility of juicing out everything — juicing out plots, juicing out emotions, juicing out lives, and so on. That helps in a way. And cinema has its own interesting trait of how to succinctly put everything together. Both have their charm and I am used to both.

Once again, I would put this in cricketing terms and say that that I can play a Test Match, One Day and T20 with equal ease. It is not a big deal. One just needs to adapt well.

You do love your cricket, don’t you?