Ch(n)ader Pahaar

It was after several long years that I set my eyes again on the book, excerpts from which had been a part of my primary school syllabus. From the very day the pages of this riveting adventure story unfolded itself in front of me, it had been etched deep into the memory. So though the age has advanced, the thrill of Sankar's adventure had remained as exciting as ever. Bibhutibhushan's masterpiece indeed had become a classic for all times.
Sankar, the son of an ordinary jute mill worker in a village of Bengal. A keen student of geography & astronomy, had always aspired for an adventurous life. Thus when he came to know of a job in the Mombasa railway construction site in Africa, he didn't waste any time and travelled across the continent to join there. There he received his first taste of danger at the labour camp where suddenly a man-eating lion appeared and kept terrorizing the labourers for days. Infact, Sankar himself had a close shave with the lion once which far from deterring his spirits made him even more emboldened. As the lion stalled the construction work, Sankar took up a stationmaster’s job near Kisumu. But here too he faced the wrath of the jungle as a lion became an infrequent visitor of his quarter and he himself had a narrow escape from a venomous Black Mamba. But here came the turning point in his life when he met the near dying Diego Alvarej, an explorer of the jungles of Africa who told him of his curious adventure in the slopes of the Richterseveldt mountain range that led to the disconvery of a diamond mine jointly with his friend and fellow explorer, the late Jim Carter. Fate had dealt a rough hand with them as they not only lost the way guiding the path to the mine but also had a tragic encounter with a three-toed savage ape that cost Carter's life. Alvarej himself had struggled to come down and he told all this as he recovered from his wounds nursed by the ever sincere Sankar. The stories invoked the adventurer in Sankar and he requested Alvarej to allow him to be part of his next mission: to find the route to the diamond mine.
Thus began the dangerous and perilous adventure of Sankar in the trecharous terrain of the Richtardsveldt studded with venomous insects, toxic herbs, savage beasts and a dormant volcano. The able penmanship of Bibhutibhushan has brought to fore all these in a brilliant style and nobody wil believe that the writer had never set a foot in the continent that he so masterfully described. Added to this is the bonus cover design by Satyajit Ray and the other equally brilliant sketches in the book makes this all the more appealing.