Unicorn Expedition , livre ebook

SATYAJIT RAY
THE EXPLOITS OF PROFESSOR SHONKU
The Unicorn Expedition and Other Stories
Translated from the Bengali by Satyajit Ray and Gopa Majumdar
Cover and Illustrations by Agantuk
PUFFIN BOOKS
Contents
About the Author
Introduction
The Sahara Mystery
Professor Shonku and the Radiant Fish
Professor Shonku and the Gorillas
Professor Shonku and the Mysterious Island
Professor Shonku and the Amazing Creature
Professor Shonku and the Cochabamban Cave
The Unicorn Expedition
Acknowledgements
Copyright Page
PUFFIN BOOKS
THE EXPLOITS OF PROFESSOR SHONKU THE UNICORN EXPEDITION
Satyajit Ray (1921-92) was one of the greatest filmmakers of his time, renowned for films like Pather Panchali, Charulata, Aranyer Din Ratri and Ghare Baire . He was awarded the Oscar for Lifetime Achievement by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1992, and in the same year, was also honoured with the Bharat Ratna.
Ray was also a writer of repute, and his short stories, novellas, poems and articles, written in Bengali, have been immensely popular ever since they first began to appear in the children s magazine Sandesh in 1961. Among his most famous creations are the master sleuth Feluda and the scientist Professor Shonku.
Gopa Majumdar has translated several works from Bengali to English, the most notable of these being Ashapurna Debi s Subarnalata and Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay s Aparajito , for which she won the Sahitya Akademi Award in 2001. She has translated several volumes of Satyajit Ray s short stories and all of the Feluda stories for Penguin Books India.
Read the Exploits of Professor Shonku in Puffin
The Diary of a Space Traveller and Other Stories
Read the Adventures of Feluda in Puffin
A Killer in Kailash The Bandits of Bombay The Criminals of Kathmandu The Curse of the Goddess The Emperor s Ring The Golden Fortress The House of Death The Incident on the Kalka Mail The Mystery of the Elephant God The Royal Bengal Mystery The Secret of the Cemetery Trouble in Gangtok
Introduction
A middle-aged scientist. Somewhat eccentric. Lives very quietly in small-town Giridih with a cat called Newton and a servant called Prahlad. In his laboratory, his experiments result in inventions that rock international scientific circles. Some love and admire him. Others hate and envy him. The only person who remains completely unimpressed by his scientific prowess is his neighbour, Avinash Babu.
This scientist is Professor Trilokeshwar Shonku, whose exploits have held readers spellbound for more than forty years. Shonku does more than invent new things. He travels-not just by land, water and sky, but also through time. In fact, the very first Shonku story that appeared in 1961 (in the newly revived Sandesh magazine) was called The Diary of a Space Traveller . It was from his diary-a red notebook which came down to earth with a meteorite-that one first learnt of his extraordinary adventures. More diaries were subsequently found in his house, and so the stories continued until Shonku s creator died in 1992.
In those thirty-one years, nearly forty stories appeared. They took the Bengali literary world by storm. Until then, science fiction had rarely been written for children in Bengal. Why, one might wonder, did Satyajit Ray think of writing it? After all, he did not remain a student of science once he had left school.
When this question was put to Ray in an interview, he simply replied, I was always interested in science fiction. His father (Sukumar Ray) and grandfather (Upendrakishore Ray Chowdhury) were both men of science, in addition to being writers, artists and composers. Satyajit had grown up reading the works of Jules Verne, H.G. Wells and Conan Doyle, and had been deeply impressed and influenced by their writing.
What is interesting is that, at first, Shonku was intended to be a comic character. He was based on the character Heshoram, created by Sukumar Ray in his well-known spoof of Conan Doyle s The Lost World . Sukumar called it Heshoram Hushiarer Diary . In it, Professor Challenger became Heshoram, the intrepid traveller who discovered a strange land inhabited by equally strange creatures. Professor Shonku took his cue from him. Ray once described Shonku as a mild-mannered Challenger . In due course, however, Shonku became serious business, although there are unmistakable touches of humour in virtually every story.
The early stories bear clear evidence of the lighthearted, comic aspects of both Shonku and Avinash Babu. The latter s role initially was simply to act as a foil to Shonku, but soon he became an important and useful ally. In the stories that feature in this collection, the two men step out of Giridih and travel to places where no man has ever travelled before. As a matter of fact, none of these stories are set in Giridih. Professor Shonku and the Radiant Fish sees them diving into the deep sea; then they roam the jungles of Africa in Professor Shonku and the Gorillas , and find themselves in a strange and wonderful island ( Professor Shonku and the Mysterious Island ) that lures and beckons who knows to what end? The Unicorn Expedition is arguably the best known of their adventures together that takes them to Tibet and beyond. The remaining three stories do not include Avinash Babu, but in each of them Shonku travels abroad. His interaction with the international world of science brings not just new adventure, but also piercing insight into human behaviour.
A major reason why the Shonku stories have always remained popular is simply that they bring the world outside closer to home, and Ray s young readers can learn a great deal about foreign lands and foreign cultures. The focus never shifts from the main plot, the action never loses its pace, yet, snippets of information are dropped and absorbed, lessons are taught-subtly and obliquely-to show what greed and malice can do to a man, and how important it is to know the difference between right and wrong.
It is interesting that the first works of Ray that appeared in English translation were neither collections of his short stories nor any of his immensely successful mystery stories featuring the detective Feluda. They were a handful of Shonku stories ( Bravo! Professor Shonku ) translated by Kathleen M. O Connell in 1983 for Rupa. In 1987 Ray himself did a few more for Secker and Warburg ( Stories ); and in 1994 came The Incredible Adventures of Professor Shonku , translated by Surabhi Banerjee and published by Penguin India. Two of Ray s translations of Shonku feature in this book; the others are all new.
More than forty years after his maiden appearance in Sandesh , Professor Shonku now faces a completely new audience that has been exposed, to a far greater measure, to the entire genre of science fiction-not just in print but also on the silver screen. Unlike the first generation of readers, those who will read these stories have seen films and television programmes like ET, Star Trek, Jurassic Park, The X-Files and Taken . Their expectations will be entirely different. How will they find these stories? Laughably simple? Hopelessly dated? Mildly amusing? Thoroughly enjoyable? Fascinating?
It would be useless to speculate here. Only time will answer that question. But one thing can be said for sure. The magic of Ray s lucid language, elegant style, succinct and graphic descriptions, gentle yet absurd humour and-above all-his ability to understand children has never failed before. It cannot fail now.
My thanks go once again to Bijoya and Sandip Ray for their continued affection and encouragement, and to Penguin India for their support and cooperation.
London April 2004
Gopa Majumdar
The Sahara Mystery
3 January
Distressing news in the new year: Demetrius is missing. Professor Hektor Demetrius, the famous Greek biologist. He lived in Iraklion, the largest city in the island of Crete. I had never met him, but had written to him when I came to know that he was doing research on ancient medicine. When I sent him some information on our own Ayurvedic medicine, he replied at once, thanking me profusely, in an elegant handwriting and considerable command of English. I later learned from my friend John Summerville that Demetrius had studied in Cambridge. It was Summerville s letter which informed me yesterday of Demetrius s disappearance, and this is what the letter revealed.
On 31 December, at nine in the morning, Demetrius had left his home with a suitcase in his hand. His servant had seen him go out, but didn t know where he was going. When his master hadn t returned by evening, he had informed the police. Investigations had revealed that Demetrius had taken a taxi to the airport and caught a plane at ten-thirty in the morning. The plane was bound for Cairo. In Cairo, Demetrius had checked into the Alhambra hotel and stayed there one night. After that, the police had drawn a blank.
Summerville, who had written from Iraklion, was a friend of Demetrius. He had gone to Athens to give a lecture, and had decided to go back by way of Crete. He heard of Demetrius s disappearance while still in Athens, had dropped everything and gone straight to Iraklion. Now he has decided to carry on his own investigation, and wants me to help him. I have been to Greece twice before but not to Crete. The urge to go is strong.
8 January
I arrived in Iraklion this morning. The town is situated on the northern coast of the island. Demetrius s home is in the outskirts of the town at the foot of a hill, surrounded on three sides by an olive orchard. At the back of the house, beyond the orchard, is a forest of cypress and fir. On the whole, a picturesque setting.
Summerville is worried, and there is plenty of cause for that. Firstly, there has been no further news from Cairo. Secondly, no reason has been found for Demetrius s sudden disappearance. Examination of the papers in his laboratory has given no indication of what he had been working