Exclusive! Anirban Chakrabarti on The Eken: Now that film is out on OTT, it feels like it has come full circle

After a successful run in theatres since its release on April 15, Joydeep Mukherjee’s The Eken got its world digital premiere on June 3 on Hoichoi. Anirban Chakrabarti has already been critically acclaimed for his portrayal of Eken Babu, aka Ekendra Sen – a quirky and quintessentially Bengali detective in the series. After its huge success as a series that has five seasons on Hoichoi, the first feature film, The Eken, was released in theatres. Now the film is streaming worldwide on Hoichoi.

Talking to OTTplay exclusively from London, Anirban said that Eken babu has a global audience base among the Bengali diaspora and Bangladeshi audience. They could watch all the series immediately after the release on Hoichoi. "With the film, they had to give it a miss and the fans went berserk. We were bombarded with emails and requests to drop the film on an OTT platform. It is because of these fans that the film has come on Hoichoi, maybe a little earlier than usual," he said and added how they started their journey from OTT and ventured out on the big screen. "Now that The Eken is again on Hoichoi, it feels like it has come a full circle,” he said.

Also read: The Eken review: Ekendra Sen unwraps an entertaining journey of cheeky one-liners and murders in the valley 

Ekendra Sen, the Bengali detective character, was created by Sujan Dasgupta in the ’90s. In the book, Ekenbabu is seen as a lanky and dishevelled man, who lives and solves crime cases in Manhattan, New York. However, the screen adaptation has a different take on the character. In the series, Ekenbabu is bald and clumsy. He loves to eat and delivers the wrong idiom. As soon as Hoichoi dropped the series with Anirban as Ekenbabu, it became an instant hit. “Ekenbabu started his journey from Bengaluru and hence, he has a solid fan base there. They also have a claim on him. Hence, when The Eken was released, they were very unhappy. That has been addressed now I hope,” he joked.

Directed by Joydeep Mukherjee and produced by SVF, the film is currently available to stream on Hoichoi.