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Professor Shonku (short story collection)
Encyclopedia
Professor Shonku is a short story collection by Satyajit Ray
, featuring the eponymous character, Professor Shonku. It was first published in India
by NewScript Publications, Calcutta, in 1965 . Of the nine short stories that are part of the collection, eight had formerly been published in various editions of the periodical magazine, Sandesh
, and one (namely Professor Shonku o Bhoot) in Ashcharya.
The collection contains seven stories, to which two other were added in later editions. Professor Shonku’s short stories are written in the format of journal
entries with dates, and are assumed to be written by Professor Shonku. These stories are in the realm of science fiction
and adventure
.
Professor Shonku is a reputed scientist
, who has not been heard of for a while. Some say that he has died while attempting a scientific experiment. Others say that he has gone incognito, and is continuing his scientific researches and experiments at some unknown corner of the earth. He will reappear in due time.
The first of Professor Shonku’s diaries come to light through a certain Tarak Chatterjee, an amateur (and rather poor) writer, who has a fascination for tiger
stories. On hearing that a large meteor
had hit the Matharia areas of the Sunderbans, he had visited the location in search of tiger-skin. Failing to find them, he had looked around to find a red notebook (which turned out to be the first of Professor Shonku’s diaries). This he hands to the narrator of the story, who then replicates the journal entries in the diary, and that constitute the first story, Byomjaatrir Diary.
The diary, even though apparently made of a material which is inextinguishable and cannot be torn or cut, is eventually destroyed by a bunch of red ants, who somehow manage to eat in to entirety.
However, the narrator then visits Professor Shonku’s laboratory
in Giridih
, and locates 21 other diaries and replicates them periodically, each as a story. After the first few stories, the narrator does not reappear, with the stories starting with the journal entries
in Giridih
. The sadhu (who was always seen hanging upside-down from a tree) was supposed to have the ability to bring dead animals back to life through the power of his spells. When skeletons of dead animals were brought to him, by chanting his spells, he was supposed to get the flesh and blood back on the bones, and then bring the animal to life. Being a scientist, Prof. Shonku was sure there was hypnotism involved, but was stunned to see that there wasn’t, and the animals were indeed coming to life.
Prof. Shonku decided to record the spell that the sadhu was chanting, and visiting the sadhu again, does manage to record the chant. But when he tried to play the chant at his laboratory, he realized that the only thing recorded was a ghastly laughter. Also looking outside from the window of his lab, Prof. Shonku sees the sadhu hanging from a tree in his garden, giving the professor an angry glare. The sadhu disappeared from Giridih the next day.
That incident got Prof Shonku interested in bones, and on seeing what he suspected were the bones of a Brontosaurus with a friend, he visits the forests of the Nilgiris
, where his friend mentions to have discovered the bone.
He does indeed find the bones of the Brontosaurus in a remote cave, but just when he had managed to clean the whole set of bones and put them together in the cave, he sees the sadhu from years ago, handing from a banyan
tree at the mouth of the cave, and chanting the same spell as he used to in Giridih. The Brontosaurus comes alive, but instead of attacking Prof Shonku in the cave, charges out and starts munching at the tree where the sadhu was hanging. The Brontosaurus was, indeed, a vegetarian, and charged at the first edible thing he could see, the banyan tree at the mouth of the cave…. The sadhu tries to chant a reverse spell and get the Brontosaurus back to its skeleton form, but just as he has completed the spell, gets crushed underneath the bones of the dinosaur
, to his death.
Memorable Invention – Mangorange, a hybrid of mango
and orange
.
Tarafdar pays a few further visits to Prof Shonku, but is not taken into the laboratory by Prof Shonku.
A few days later, Prof Shonku finds a Macaw
in his garden, and decides to keep it as his pet. The Macaw along with having a colourful plumage, has a special ability, it speaks clear Bengali
, and Prof Shonku can have quite a conversation with it.
The Macaw, in conversation asks him what he is working on, one day. The Professor replies that he is trying to create a potion that will make a person invisible for a few hours. The Macaw asks him what is it called, and Shonku replies that while he has not named it as yet, the ingredients he has used are an extract of Gorgona Sauce, Paranaium Potentate, Sodium bicarbonate
, Eggs of the Weaver bird, Tincture of iodine
, and the extract of Gandal Pata (Skunk Vine).
A few days from that, the Macaw disappears. Prof Shonku is naturally disappointed.
A day after, Prof Shonku comes back from his evening walk to find his laboratory ransacked. Also, he notices that a bunch of his research papers is flying out of the window. And as he tries to grab the bunch, he encounters an invisible person, and has an extended struggle with it. The invisible man is not very strong, but somehow manages to struggle out of Prof Shonku’s grasp, but while he is running away, he is attacked by the Macaw, also invisible, and Prof Shonku is able to retrieve the papers as the invisible man manages to get away. During the man’s struggles with the bird, he let out a few screams, and Shonku identifies the voice as that of Tarafdar, the scientist who has visited his house a while back.
The mystery is revealed by the Macaw. It was part of a Brazil
ian circus
troupe, knows 17 languages, and has got exceptional memory (which helped it to remember the ingredients of the invisibility potion on one hearing). The Macaw was stolen by Tarafdar, and brought with him to India. While visiting Prof Shonku, Tarafdar gets to read about the invisibility potion among Prof Shonku’s papers which he was going through without asking, and has the brainwave to get the ingredients from Prof Shonku through the Macaw. The Macaw does the bidding of his master, but after the secret is revealed, Tarafdar tries to kill the bird so that the secret dies with it. However, the bird sees that the only way it can survive is by gulping a bit of the potion itself, and does so to escape Tarafdar. It follows Tarafdar, and when Tarafdar is about to make away with the papers, it injures Tarafdar and helps Prof Shonku to retrieve his papers.
Notable Invention - Unnamed Invisibility
Potion
Many stories of Professor Shonku were part of the collection The Diary of a Space Traveller and other stories, translated by Satyajit Ray
and Gopa Majumdar, and published by Puffin Classics
, in 2004 (ISBN 978-0143335818 ).
in 1967
Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray was an Indian Bengali filmmaker. He is regarded as one of the greatest auteurs of 20th century cinema. Ray was born in the city of Kolkata into a Bengali family prominent in the world of arts and literature...
, featuring the eponymous character, Professor Shonku. It was first published in India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
by NewScript Publications, Calcutta, in 1965 . Of the nine short stories that are part of the collection, eight had formerly been published in various editions of the periodical magazine, Sandesh
Sandesh (magazine)
Sandesh is a Bengali children's magazine. The periodical was first published by Upendrakishore Raychowdhury in 1913 through his publishing company, M/s U. Ray and Sons. After the death of Upendrakishore Roychowdhury in 1915, his eldest son Sukumar Ray succeeded as the editor of the magazine in...
, and one (namely Professor Shonku o Bhoot) in Ashcharya.
The collection contains seven stories, to which two other were added in later editions. Professor Shonku’s short stories are written in the format of journal
Diary
A diary is a record with discrete entries arranged by date reporting on what has happened over the course of a day or other period. A personal diary may include a person's experiences, and/or thoughts or feelings, including comment on current events outside the writer's direct experience. Someone...
entries with dates, and are assumed to be written by Professor Shonku. These stories are in the realm of science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
and adventure
Adventure
An adventure is defined as an exciting or unusual experience; it may also be a bold, usually risky undertaking, with an uncertain outcome. The term is often used to refer to activities with some potential for physical danger, such as skydiving, mountain climbing and or participating in extreme sports...
.
Plot introduction
The introduction to the first story, Byomjaatrir Diary, goes:Professor Shonku is a reputed scientist
Scientist
A scientist in a broad sense is one engaging in a systematic activity to acquire knowledge. In a more restricted sense, a scientist is an individual who uses the scientific method. The person may be an expert in one or more areas of science. This article focuses on the more restricted use of the word...
, who has not been heard of for a while. Some say that he has died while attempting a scientific experiment. Others say that he has gone incognito, and is continuing his scientific researches and experiments at some unknown corner of the earth. He will reappear in due time.
The first of Professor Shonku’s diaries come to light through a certain Tarak Chatterjee, an amateur (and rather poor) writer, who has a fascination for tiger
Tiger
The tiger is the largest cat species, reaching a total body length of up to and weighing up to . Their most recognizable feature is a pattern of dark vertical stripes on reddish-orange fur with lighter underparts...
stories. On hearing that a large meteor
METEOR
METEOR is a metric for the evaluation of machine translation output. The metric is based on the harmonic mean of unigram precision and recall, with recall weighted higher than precision...
had hit the Matharia areas of the Sunderbans, he had visited the location in search of tiger-skin. Failing to find them, he had looked around to find a red notebook (which turned out to be the first of Professor Shonku’s diaries). This he hands to the narrator of the story, who then replicates the journal entries in the diary, and that constitute the first story, Byomjaatrir Diary.
The diary, even though apparently made of a material which is inextinguishable and cannot be torn or cut, is eventually destroyed by a bunch of red ants, who somehow manage to eat in to entirety.
However, the narrator then visits Professor Shonku’s laboratory
Laboratory
A laboratory is a facility that provides controlled conditions in which scientific research, experiments, and measurement may be performed. The title of laboratory is also used for certain other facilities where the processes or equipment used are similar to those in scientific laboratories...
in Giridih
Giridih
Giridih is headquarters of the Giridih district of Jharkhand state, India. The literal meaning of Giridih is the land of hills & hillocks - giri, a Hindi word, means hills and dih, another word of the local dialect, indicates upland...
, and locates 21 other diaries and replicates them periodically, each as a story. After the first few stories, the narrator does not reappear, with the stories starting with the journal entries
Byomjatrir Diary (first published in Sandesh September November 1961)
Professor Shonku o Harh (first published in Sandesh, Jan. 1964)
Professor Shonku had once, at the insistence of Avinash-babu, visited a sadhuSadhu
In Hinduism, sādhu denotes an ascetic, wandering monk. Although the vast majority of sādhus are yogīs, not all yogīs are sādhus. The sādhu is solely dedicated to achieving mokṣa , the fourth and final aśrama , through meditation and contemplation of brahman...
in Giridih
Giridih
Giridih is headquarters of the Giridih district of Jharkhand state, India. The literal meaning of Giridih is the land of hills & hillocks - giri, a Hindi word, means hills and dih, another word of the local dialect, indicates upland...
. The sadhu (who was always seen hanging upside-down from a tree) was supposed to have the ability to bring dead animals back to life through the power of his spells. When skeletons of dead animals were brought to him, by chanting his spells, he was supposed to get the flesh and blood back on the bones, and then bring the animal to life. Being a scientist, Prof. Shonku was sure there was hypnotism involved, but was stunned to see that there wasn’t, and the animals were indeed coming to life.
Prof. Shonku decided to record the spell that the sadhu was chanting, and visiting the sadhu again, does manage to record the chant. But when he tried to play the chant at his laboratory, he realized that the only thing recorded was a ghastly laughter. Also looking outside from the window of his lab, Prof. Shonku sees the sadhu hanging from a tree in his garden, giving the professor an angry glare. The sadhu disappeared from Giridih the next day.
That incident got Prof Shonku interested in bones, and on seeing what he suspected were the bones of a Brontosaurus with a friend, he visits the forests of the Nilgiris
Nilgiris (mountains)
The Nilgiri , often referred to as the Nilgiri Hills, are a range of mountains with at least 24 peaks above , in the westernmost part of Tamil Nadu state at the junction of Karnataka and Kerala states in Southern India...
, where his friend mentions to have discovered the bone.
He does indeed find the bones of the Brontosaurus in a remote cave, but just when he had managed to clean the whole set of bones and put them together in the cave, he sees the sadhu from years ago, handing from a banyan
Banyan
A banyan is a fig that starts its life as an epiphyte when its seeds germinate in the cracks and crevices on a host tree...
tree at the mouth of the cave, and chanting the same spell as he used to in Giridih. The Brontosaurus comes alive, but instead of attacking Prof Shonku in the cave, charges out and starts munching at the tree where the sadhu was hanging. The Brontosaurus was, indeed, a vegetarian, and charged at the first edible thing he could see, the banyan tree at the mouth of the cave…. The sadhu tries to chant a reverse spell and get the Brontosaurus back to its skeleton form, but just as he has completed the spell, gets crushed underneath the bones of the dinosaur
Dinosaur
Dinosaurs are a diverse group of animals of the clade and superorder Dinosauria. They were the dominant terrestrial vertebrates for over 160 million years, from the late Triassic period until the end of the Cretaceous , when the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event led to the extinction of...
, to his death.
Memorable Invention – Mangorange, a hybrid of mango
Mango
The mango is a fleshy stone fruit belonging to the genus Mangifera, consisting of numerous tropical fruiting trees in the flowering plant family Anacardiaceae. The mango is native to India from where it spread all over the world. It is also the most cultivated fruit of the tropical world. While...
and orange
Orange (fruit)
An orange—specifically, the sweet orange—is the citrus Citrus × sinensis and its fruit. It is the most commonly grown tree fruit in the world....
.
Professor Shonku o Macaw (first published in Sandesh, Autumn 1964)
Prof. Shonku has a guest at his home and laboratory in Giridih. The scientist Prof. Gajanan Tarafdar, Shonku mentions, is quite average in his skills, but has the habit of asking very inquisitive questions about the inventions Prof Shonku is working on currently, trying to find out as many details as he can. Also, he has the habit of looking around the lab trying to get in as much information as he can. In fact, when Prof Shonku had to attend to the door for a mail and leave Prof Tarafdar for a few minutes, he comes back to see Tarafdar scurrying through Prof. Shonku’s papers without permission. While Prof Shonku could have snatched the papers from Tarafdar’s hands, decency prevents him from doing it, and all he manages to do is excuse himself for the day.Tarafdar pays a few further visits to Prof Shonku, but is not taken into the laboratory by Prof Shonku.
A few days later, Prof Shonku finds a Macaw
Macaw
Macaws are small to large, often colourful New World parrots. Of the many different Psittacidae genera, six are classified as macaws: Ara, Anodorhynchus, Cyanopsitta, Primolius, Orthopsittaca, and Diopsittaca...
in his garden, and decides to keep it as his pet. The Macaw along with having a colourful plumage, has a special ability, it speaks clear Bengali
Bengali language
Bengali or Bangla is an eastern Indo-Aryan language. It is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises present day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and parts of the Indian states of Tripura and Assam. It is written with the Bengali script...
, and Prof Shonku can have quite a conversation with it.
The Macaw, in conversation asks him what he is working on, one day. The Professor replies that he is trying to create a potion that will make a person invisible for a few hours. The Macaw asks him what is it called, and Shonku replies that while he has not named it as yet, the ingredients he has used are an extract of Gorgona Sauce, Paranaium Potentate, Sodium bicarbonate
Sodium bicarbonate
Sodium bicarbonate or sodium hydrogen carbonate is the chemical compound with the formula Na HCO3. Sodium bicarbonate is a white solid that is crystalline but often appears as a fine powder. It has a slightly salty, alkaline taste resembling that of washing soda . The natural mineral form is...
, Eggs of the Weaver bird, Tincture of iodine
Tincture of iodine
Tincture of iodine is a disinfectant, usually 2–7% elemental iodine, along with potassium iodide or sodium iodide, dissolved in a mixture of ethanol and water. As in the case of Lugol's iodine, the role of iodide and water in the solution is to increase the solubility of the elemental iodine, by...
, and the extract of Gandal Pata (Skunk Vine).
A few days from that, the Macaw disappears. Prof Shonku is naturally disappointed.
A day after, Prof Shonku comes back from his evening walk to find his laboratory ransacked. Also, he notices that a bunch of his research papers is flying out of the window. And as he tries to grab the bunch, he encounters an invisible person, and has an extended struggle with it. The invisible man is not very strong, but somehow manages to struggle out of Prof Shonku’s grasp, but while he is running away, he is attacked by the Macaw, also invisible, and Prof Shonku is able to retrieve the papers as the invisible man manages to get away. During the man’s struggles with the bird, he let out a few screams, and Shonku identifies the voice as that of Tarafdar, the scientist who has visited his house a while back.
The mystery is revealed by the Macaw. It was part of a Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
ian circus
Circus
A circus is commonly a travelling company of performers that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, unicyclists and other stunt-oriented artists...
troupe, knows 17 languages, and has got exceptional memory (which helped it to remember the ingredients of the invisibility potion on one hearing). The Macaw was stolen by Tarafdar, and brought with him to India. While visiting Prof Shonku, Tarafdar gets to read about the invisibility potion among Prof Shonku’s papers which he was going through without asking, and has the brainwave to get the ingredients from Prof Shonku through the Macaw. The Macaw does the bidding of his master, but after the secret is revealed, Tarafdar tries to kill the bird so that the secret dies with it. However, the bird sees that the only way it can survive is by gulping a bit of the potion itself, and does so to escape Tarafdar. It follows Tarafdar, and when Tarafdar is about to make away with the papers, it injures Tarafdar and helps Prof Shonku to retrieve his papers.
Notable Invention - Unnamed Invisibility
Invisibility
Invisibility is the state of an object that cannot be seen. An object in this state is said to be invisible . The term is usually used as a fantasy/science fiction term, where objects are literally made unseeable by magical or technological means; however, its effects can also be seen in the real...
Potion
Professor Shonku o Egyptio Aatonko (first published in Sandesh, April 1963)
Professor Shonku o Ashcharya Putul (first published in Sandesh, March 1965)
Professor Shonku o Golok Rahasya (first published in Sandesh, May 1965)
Professor Shonku o Chi Ching (first published in Sandesh, Autumn 1965)
Professor Shonku o Khoka (first published in Sandesh, July 1967)
Professor Shonku o Bhoot (first published in Ashcharya, Autumn 1966)
Translation
Professor Shonku was translated to English by Sukanya Jhaveri in 1981.Many stories of Professor Shonku were part of the collection The Diary of a Space Traveller and other stories, translated by Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray was an Indian Bengali filmmaker. He is regarded as one of the greatest auteurs of 20th century cinema. Ray was born in the city of Kolkata into a Bengali family prominent in the world of arts and literature...
and Gopa Majumdar, and published by Puffin Classics
Puffin Books
Puffin Books is the children's imprint of British publishers Penguin Books. Since the 1960s it has been the largest publisher of children's books in the UK and much of the English-speaking world.-Early history:...
, in 2004 (ISBN 978-0143335818 ).
Awards
Professor Shonku was awarded the Sahitya Academy award for Children's LiteratureChildren's literature
Children's literature is for readers and listeners up to about age twelve; it is often defined in four different ways: books written by children, books written for children, books chosen by children, or books chosen for children. It is often illustrated. The term is used in senses which sometimes...
in 1967