Boxer Ratan

A wonderful science fiction for the young by Shirshendu that has not lost most of its charm while I read it today, several years after I'd first gone through it. The ever lovable peculiar characters that are a must in Shirshendu novels are though absent but the strangeness of the plot and the mystery that surrounds it will no doubt enthrall the young mind.

Ratan, a passionate boxer, on the night of his national title win returns home, a confused man who just had the most remarkable of revelations about his father's past. Infact the confusion gives way to devastation when he finds his father missing on his return. His father had once been a great scientist and visionary on the verge of a revolutionery discovery, aimed to solve the world's energy crisis, when he suddenly lost his memory in a laboratory mishap. But now it seemed that all that was a conspiracy to devoid his father from the success of his experiments and now some evil international dealers kidnapped the old scientist for the formulas that he hid somewhere. Ratan was approached by strangers claiming to be from another international agency who wanted to save his father but he was confused as to whom to believe.

The story now takes a turn at the seas and the adventure continues to a final battle of wits and strength that increases the excitement even more.

A master of story telling, Shirshendu had excelled himself in the sense that the minute details of a boxer's moves during fight sequences are critically explained without loosing a single pulse of the moment.