Professor Shonku

This book is special in many respects. In my younger days when I started relishing works of Ray starting with Feluda through his short stories and Tarinukhuro, the science fiction hero had been something quite remote to my imaginations. In this situation there came Professor Shonku’s adventures in my collection and I was not sure whether to compare him to Feluda or to enjoy the adventures. The regime of science fiction before Shonku had been not so defined in my fantasies. Also imagining a Bengali science fiction hero carrying out exploits to the bewilderment of the entire world had also been something not very realistic to someone whose entire world of science fiction resided in watching Star Trek and Johnny Soko episodes in monochrome. So Shonku had been more than a revelation to me. He allowed me in my childhood days to feel confident that a successful Bengali scientist is also a reality. True that Ray’s work is based on fictional character carrying out fictional experiments sometimes in fictional landscapes but Ray did mould Shonku as the next door neighbor who happens to be a genius. The school goers may not be always feel motivated to read narratives on Jagadish Chandra Bose, Satyendranath Bose, Bidhan Chandra Ray, Meghnad Saha or the other greats who contributed to the evolution of science, but they will surely read Shonku. So the craziness of science and its sure path towards truth will no doubt creep into their mind and also they will not fail to understand the fun side of it. This character of Ray is not unlike his famous private investigator but he seeks truth hiding beneath the depth of nature.

Coming to the significance of this compilation, this happens to be chronologically the 1^st of the Shonku adventures. But curiously enough I could not collect it but for many years as the shops that I frequented always produced other collections but not this one to my queries. So as I was losing hope of ever getting it and seriously doubted whether this collection at all existed, it suddenly came to me. It seemed to fill up the void in my collection. Another point which I then found out was that, unlike the others being published by Ananda Publishers, it was published by New Script.

Being the 1^st in the series, the stories will grip the attention from the very 1^st introduction and the interesting manner in which completed Byomyatrir Diary came to see the light of earth. A horrifying experience awaits the reader in Professor Shonku o Haar with an immediate relief in Professor Shonku o Macaw. Then is another thrilling story of an Epytian curse in Professor Shonku o Egyptio Atanka. Following up the suspense is one of my favourites, Professor Shonku o Ascharya Putul. The next is another that I admire most, an intergalactic adventure that will keep the thrill till the last in Professor Shonku o Golok Rahasya following it up with yet another fascinating, horrifying, amusing and another of my cherished memories as I think of Professor Shonku o Chee-Ching. The rest delves in the mysteries of two very different aspects, the human mind in Professor Shonku o Khoka and in Professoru Shonku o Bhoot which delves in the spectral world.