Herbert is a 2005 Bengali-language film that was directed by veteran theatre director Suman Mukhopadhyay. It was based on Nabarun Bhattacharya's Sahitya Akademi Award winning novel of the same name.
This story is based on the life of one Herbert Sarkar, played by Subhasish Mukhopadhyay. Herbert Sarkar, the protagonist of the story is a forty year old crank who thinks that he can talk to the dead. Herbert grew up in North Kolkata, feeding on the charity of relatives, and being the butt of local jokes. He declares one day that he has received a message in a dream that has told him where his long dead cousin Binu's diary remains hidden. People are surprised and amused. But when this prediction proves to be true, Herbert becomes a local sensation. He sets up a roaring business called "Dialogues with the Dead" for three years and for the first time in his life, earns money and the respect of others. However, his luck runs out when the international Rationalist Society declares him a fraud and threatens to turn him over to the law unless he closes shop. This deeply affects Herbert and he commits suicide that very night. However, his celebrity power increases to unprecedented levels the day after his death. After his body is put inside the electric cremation chamber, there is a tremendous explosion that rips apart the building, injuring many bystanders. The incident hits the headlines as a posthumous terroristic act, and a high-level police inquiry is launched to find the mystery behind it. The film begins at this point and follows the trajectory of the inquiry, flash-backing into the hidden corners of Herbert's quixotic life into his lonely growing up years as an alienated orphan, his ill-treatment at the hands of his cruel cousin Dhanna, his only tragic-comic love affair, and his unwitting involvement with the underground Maoist Naxalbari movement during the turbulent seventies. It covers several decades not only in the life of its protagonist, but also in the life of Kolkata the city that is at once mysterious, funny, tempestuous, and always full of life.
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