On a visit to the holy city of Benares, Felu, Ray's wry detective introduced in The Golden Fortress (see Saturday, October 17), is hired to investigate the theft of a valuable gold statuette of Ganesh, the Elephant God. In the course of his day's work, Felu encounters a holy man, just in from Allahabad having swum, he claims, all the way; a weight-lifter for whom body-building is spiritual bread and butter; a small boy, enamored of Captain Spark, who speaks in riddles; and an unholy smuggling ring whose warehouses are the shrines of Benares. A mystery of whimsy and low-key comedy, The Elephant God was featured at the 1980 San Francisco Film Festival, where Albert Johnson noted: “...(T)he teeming, historical byways of Benares, already explored by Ray years ago in Aparajito, are here once more, but now with an incisive... observation.... Ray is presenting modern India to us, but one's eyes are continuously fascinated by Benares...a city beyond the demands and transitory musings of the present. As its clamorous citizens move past one's eyes, a mixture of glory-and-grotesque, there is a possibility that, faintly, behind the action, one might hear the Elephant God himself, singing.” (JB)