Professor Shonku (short story collection)

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Professor Shonku

Author	Satyajit Ray
Cover artist	Satyajit Ray
Country	India
Language	Bengali
Series	Professor Shonku
Genre	Science fiction
Publication date	1965
Media type	Print (hardcover)
Preceded by	None
Followed by	Professor Shonkur Kandokarkhana

Professor Shonku is a collection of nine science fiction adventure thriller short stories by Satyajit Ray featuring the fictional scientist-inventor Professor Shonku. The collection was first published in 1965 by Calcutta publisher NewScript Publications.^[1]

The original collection contained seven stories, while the eight and ninth stories were added in later editions. Eight of the nine stories were previously published in children's magazine Sandesh. The ninth, "Professor Shonku o Bhoot", was previously published in Ashcharya. The short stories are written in epistolary form, using dated diary entries as a framing device.

Introduction[]

The introduction to the first story, Byomjatrir Diary, goes:

Professor Shonku is a reputable scientist who disappeared fifteen years ago. Some say that he died while attempting a scientific experiment. Others say that he has gone into hiding, continuing his scientific researches and experiments at some unknown corner of the Earth and will reappear in due time.

The first of Professor Shonku's diaries is discovered by Tarak Chatterjee, an amateur (and rather poor) writer, who has a fascination for tiger stories. On hearing that a large meteor had crashed into the Matharia areas of the Sundarbans, he visited the location in search of tiger skin. Failing to find them, he looked around only to find a red notebook inside the meteor's hole (later learned to be the first of Professor Shonku's diaries). This he hands to the Editor of Sandesh, who publishes the diary's entries as the first story, "Byomjatrir Diary".

The diary is eventually destroyed by fire ants, who eat it entirely. However, the Editor visits Professor Shonku's laboratory in Giridih, India, and locates twenty-one other diaries, which he publishes periodically as stories in his magazine. After the first few stories, the Editor stops appearing, and the stories begin with the journal entries themselves, narrated by Shonku directly.

Synopses of stories[]

Byomjatrir Diary (first published in Sandesh, September – November 1961)[]

The story begins with a poor author approaching the Editor of Sandesh with a journal by Professor Shonku, a scientist who disappeared fifteen years ago. The Editor learns from the diary that the scientist, despite being mocked by his neighbour Abinash Chandra Majumdar, was getting prepared for a voyage to Mars. He also invented a robot that he referred to as Bidhushekhar. Later the professor, along with Bidhushekhar, his servant Prahlad, and his pet cat Newton, arrived in Mars and were attacked by an army of Martians. They fled from Mars, lost their way in space, and after many days of wandering, finally arrived in Tafa, an unknown planet inhabited by the "first civilized humans of the solar system." Unlike the Martians, the inhabitants of Tafa warmly welcomed the strangers and made Professor Shonku their fellow citizen. The Editor plans to publish the journal in his magazine, only to discover later that the diary has been destroyed by a swarm of ants.

Professor Shonku o Harh (first published in Sandesh, January 1964)[]

This story deals with magic and the study of bones.

Upon the insistence of Abinash Chandra Majumdar, Professor Shonku visits a sadhu in Giridih . The sadhu (who was always seen hanging upside down from a tree) is known 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, he's known to chant his spells and bring the animal back to life. Being a scientist and an inventor, Professor Shonku was sure there was hypnotism involved but was stunned to see that the animals were indeed coming to life.

Professor Shonku decides to secretly record the spell that the sadhu was chanting and, visiting the sadhu again, manages to record the chant. However, when he tries to play the chant at his laboratory, he realizes that the only thing recorded was a ghastly laughter. Shonku, after seeing the sadhu hanging from a tree in his garden and angrily glaring at him, finally realizes that the sadhu mysteriously learnt about his plan. The sadhu disappears from Giridih the next day.

That incident got Professor Shonku interested in bones, and on seeing what he suspected were the bones of a Brontosaurus in a neighbour's house, he visits the forests of the Nilgiris, where his neighbour had found the bone. He does indeed find the bones of the Brontosaurus in a remote cave. After extracting all the bones, cleaning them up and studying them, one night Shonku sees the sadhu from the previous incident, hanging from a banyan tree at the entrance of the cave and chanting the same spell as he used to in Giridih. The Brontosaurus comes alive but instead of attacking Shonku in the cave, it charges out and starts munching at the tree where the sadhu was hanging. The Brontosaurus turns out to be a vegetarian and charged at the first edible thing it saw: the banyan tree at the cave's entrance. The sadhu tries to chant a reverse spell to get the Brontosaurus back to its skeleton form, but just as he has completed the spell, he gets crushed to his death, underneath the bones of the dinosaur.

The story ends with Professor Shonku preparing to board his train, for his return trip to Giridih.

Professor Shonku o Macaw (first published in Sandesh, Autumn 1964)[]

This story deals with a macaw and its abilities.

The story opens with Professor Shonku narrating his experience with Professor Gajanan Tarafdar. Professor Tarafdar is an unscrupulous scientist who loves to snoop in on other scientists' works and profit off their work.

While Shonku was busy with his experiment of creating an invisibility potion, Tarafdar arrives to meet with him. Tarafdar's interrogation and examination of Shonku's actions distresses him. When Shonku gets distracted by a piece of mail he received, Tarafdar starts reading Shonku's notebook that contains his experiments and formulae. Shonku arrives, catches Tarafdar and cleverly gets rid of him from his house. Even after that, Tarafdar still visits his house, but Shonku keeps him away from his laboratory, thus preventing him from reading his notes.

Later, Tarafdar goes to Hazaribagh, from where he writes a letter to Shonku, challenging him by saying that he'll make an invisibility potion before him in order to defeat him.

One morning, after returning from a morning walk, Shonku discovers a macaw bird sitting on the branch of his garden's tree. Albeit initially shocked, Shonku keeps the macaw.

While experimenting with his invisibility potion one day, Shonku attempts to test the potion on a guinea pig when, to his utter shock, the macaw starts speaking to him in clear Bengali and asks what he's doing. Shonku briefly explains his work to the macaw and when the bird asks about the potion in his hand, Shonku explains what it is and even reveals the formula of the potion. The macaw turns silent when Shonku asks how it learnt Bengali.

Later one night, while returning to his bedroom after having dinner, Shonku hears the macaw murmuring the invisibility potion's formula to itself. Both of them say good night to each other and leave.

One day later, the macaw vanishes from Shonku's house. While entering in his laboratory, Shonku discovers the laboratory window open and the macaw gone. Albeit sad at the macaw's departure, he becomes suspicious about the open window as he clearly remembers that he closed it. In order to get over the sadness, Shonku focuses on his work.

The next month, after Shonku has finished his experiment, an incident happens in his house. After returning from his prolonged morning walk, he sees the main door open and the lock broken and his pet cat Newton afraid. Hearing sounds coming from his laboratory, Shonku rushes inside and sees that his laboratory has been ransacked in his absence and, most importantly, he sees a bundle of his notebooks flying in the air on their own and going towards the open window. Shonku pounces upon his notebooks and a struggle ensues between him and an invisible person. Shonku succeeds in overpowering the invisible intruder and retrieving his notes, but the invisible intruder tries to escape. Another invisible creature arrives and attacks the escaping invisible intruder. With the help of their voices, Shonku recognizes both the invisible creatures: the person whom he overpowered is the invisible Tarafdar and Tarafdar's invisible attacker is the macaw. Tarafdar, though wounded by the macaw, manages to escape and the macaw arrives at Shonku's house.

The macaw now reveals the entire truth to Shonku: the macaw was actually the part of a Brazilian circus. Tarafdar went to Brazil a few years ago and stole the macaw from there. The macaw, who was already intelligent and proficient in several languages, started living with Tarafdar and learnt Bengali language from him. Tarafdar, eager to defeat Shonku in the challenge, sent the macaw to infiltrate Shonku's household and to gather the invisibility potion's formula. Tarafdar created his potion after hearing the formula from the macaw and successfully became invisible. Thinking that the macaw can betray him in the future, and also to suppress his secrets which the macaw knows, Tarafdar tries to kill the bird. Seeing the invisible Tarafdar pulling out his gun, the visibly afraid macaw drank Tarafdar's invisibility potion to save itself. Missing his chance to kill the bird, Tarafdar leaves Hazaribagh and arrives in Giridih to steal Shonku's notebooks; unbeknownst to him, the macaw followed him.

The story ends with Shonku thanking the now-visible macaw and the macaw thanking Shonku in return.

Professor Shonku o Egyptio Aatonko (first published in Sandesh, April 1964)[]

This is a story about the mummies of Egypt. There is one person who tells Professor Shonku to stop his work on mummies, after which Shonku takes a mummy from his friend and returns it to Giridih. But there also the man comes to stop his work who later Shonku knows is mad.

Professor Shonku o Golok Rahasya (first published in Sandesh, May 1965)[]

This is a story about the Universe's smallest planet which is inhabited by deadly viruses.

Abinash Chandra Majumdar, the neighbor of Professor Shonku, goes out of his house one morning for a morning walk; he stumbles upon a small ball lying next to a deceased snake. Intrigued, he keeps the ball with himself.

Professor Shonku, meanwhile, invents Microsonograph, a machine capable of hearing and recording inaudible sounds of all kinds, regardless of whether the sounds are made by animals or plants. He experiments it by recording the sound of a rose crying loudly, after tearing a leaf of the flower.

Later, Abinashbabu visits Shonku and shows the ball to him. Abinashbabu is very happy with his discovery and says that he made a really good discovery and that he has finally defeated Shonku from one side; Shonku gladly accepts it.

One evening, when Shonku is recording the sound of grasses, yelling in pain as they're trimmed by his gardener, Abinashbabu bursts in. Agitated, he claims that the ball is changing color. During one whole day, the ball has changed colour several times. He also claims that he stayed awake till late at night to see the color change. Shonku dismisses his claims as a big hallucination due to sleep deprivation, angering Abinashbabu.

Later, Shonku visits Abinashbabu and finds him writing an article for a newspaper regarding the ball. Shonku asks to stay in his house to study the ball's colour-changing phenomena; Abinashbabu accepts. Shonku is left visibly shocked to see the ball's colour-changing phenomena and agrees that the ball has some kind of magic.

Later, Abinashbabu discovers some dead insects lying near the ball; scared, he gives up his claim on the ball and gives it to Shonku.

Shonku studies the ball minutely, but reaches to no proper conclusion. He's even more puzzled when his pet cat Newton turns violent and attempts to destroy the ball, only for Shonku to restrain the cat. Finally, while lying in bed trying to fall asleep, he realises what the colour-changing actually is: the ball's colour-changing phenomena resembles the season change of Earth. Different colours on the ball represent the different seasons. The only difference is that the ball takes one day for season change, whereas Earth takes an entire year for season change. Stunned, Shonku soon falls asleep.

Shonku wakes up, later that night and hears a thin, shrill and low voice calling him by his name. Shonku and his cat Newton go downstairs and enter in the laboratory and the sound intensity increases. He realises that the sound is coming from the ball and is being recorded by his Microsonograph, which he mistakenly left switched on.

Suddenly, he hears an alien voice coming from the ball. The voice claims that they're the inhabitants of the ball and that their planet, named Terratom, is the smallest exoplanet known in the Universe. Terratom deflected from it's orbit and crashed into Earth. Shonku realises that he's talking to aliens, which distresses him a little. The aliens soon reveal themselves to be highly lethal and extremely dangerous viruses which explains the presence of the dead snake and the dead insects. The virus-like aliens also claims that they can infect and kill the entire population of Earth within 3 days. They ask Shonku to release them, as they're suffocating due to lack of air, as Shonku kept the ball inside a small glass chamber. Shonku remains adamant; he stays in his position and doesn't remove the glass chamber, allowing the aliens to perish. The virus-like alien population soon suffocate to death, in an excruciating way.

The story ends with Shonku pulling out the ball-sized planet—now lifeless—and giving it to his cat Newton. While playing with it, Newton the cat destroys the ball-like planet.

Professor Shonku o Chi Ching (first published in Sandesh, Autumn 1965)[]

A Chinese magician fails to hypnotize Professor Shonku. After some years, the magician comes to Shonku's house. When the magician leaves the house, Shonku sees a lizard eating his dangerous acids, like anihilin acid and nitro-anihilin, and transforms into a Chinese dragon. Shonku fires the electric pistol, his invention, to slay the dragon, but it did not work. Next, Shonku loses his senses. When he regains his senses, he understands the magician Chi-Ching had hypnotized him.

Professor Shonku o Khoka (first published in Sandesh, July 1967)[]

This story deals with the mysteries of human brain and human intelligence.

The story centers around Khoka, a young, ordinary boy. While playing in his house's courtyard, Khoka slips, falls and injures his own head, after which he undergoes a drastic change. He starts speaking "gibberish", according to his parents, who are immensely worried for his well-being. After several doctors fail to reach a conclusion regarding his condition, Khoka's desperate father meets with Professor Shonku, asking for his help. Though initially uninterested, Shonku reluctantly agrees to see Khoka. During his first meeting with Khoka, the boy nonchalantly reveals the power of Shonku's spectacles, utterly shocking him.

After studying Khoka for some time, Shonku realises that the supposed "gibberish" constantly uttered by Khoka are actually scientifically intricate formulae and information which Khoka has no possible way of learning. Khoka is saying all those things, with no possible explanation as to how he came to know about those things. He even starts displaying psychic abilities.

After Khoka garners local attention, journalists and reporters start flocking around Shonku's house inorder to have an interview with the boy. With his psychic skills, Khoka causes a reporter's camera to malfunction, and starts speaking in foreign languages to evade the journalist's questions. Shonku quickly brings the event to an end, when Khoka grows tired.

One night, Shonku abruptly wakes up from his sleep, only to discover Khoka gone from his bed. He soon discovers Khoka, working in Shonku's own laboratory with his own chemicals. Shonku attempts to stop Khoka, but Khoka threatens to injure him if he tries to interrupt. After a long and stressful moment, Khoka finally concocts a chemical potion—using some of Shonku's dangerous chemicals—and consumes it, after which he loses consciousness.

Khoka inexplicably reverts back to normal in the morning. Shonku escorts him back home, and Khoka's parents are quite delighted to see their son become normal again. The story ends with Khoka asking Shonku to buy chocolate for him and Shonku agreeing to it.

Professor Shonku o Bhoot (first published in Ashcharya, Autumn 1966)[]

This story deals with the topic of ghosts.

Professor Trilokeshwar Shonku has invented a headwear named Neo-Spectroscope which enables him to meet with the ghosts of deceased people. He experiments it by communicating with the ghost of his dead friend Prof. Archibald Ackroyd. Due to the success of his invention, Shonku lives care-free for a few days and then a new problem takes place.

People, including the neighbour Abinash Chandra Majumdar, start to see Shonku roaming around Giridih. When they call him, he leaves without responding to their calls. This news shocks Shonku as he never left the house during those times. Even Shonku's manservant, Prahlad claims to have seen Shonku late one night in the laboratory when, in reality, the actual Shonku was sleeping in his bedroom. Shonku becomes worried and starts to think that he's doing all these things unconsciously without remembering anything. Later one night, Shonku sees "himself" sitting in his garden's deck chair. This compels Shonku to get to the bottom of the mystery.

The result leaves him astounded. The man whom everyone presumed to be Shonku is actually the ghost of Shonku's great-great-grandfather, Botukeshwar Shonku, who was a saint and a mystic by profession. Botukeshwar actually wanted to meet with Shonku and bless him for his work. After the blessing, Botukeshwar vanishes, never to be seen again.

Later, Abinashbabu meets with Shonku and shows him a photo taken by Abinash's nephew. Abinashbabu claims that Shonku was in the photo but Shonku's image had magically vanished from the photo. Shonku reveals the entire truth to him and calls Prahlad to make coffee.

Translation[]

Professor Shonku was translated to English by Sukanya Jhaveri in 1981.^[2]

Many stories of Professor Shonku were part of the collection The Diary of a Space Traveller and other stories, translated by Satyajit Ray and , and published by Puffin Classics,^[3] in 2004 (ISBN 978-0-14-333581-8 ).

Awards[]

Professor Shonku was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award for Children's Literature in 1967.^[4]

See also[]

References[]