Diary of a Space Traveller and other Stories

Satyajit Ray

Description

It all began with the fall of a meteorite and the crater it made. In its centre was a red notebook, sticking out of the ground the first (or was it really the last?) of Professor Shonku s diaries. Professor Trilokeshwar Shonku, eccentric genius and scientist, disappeared without a trace after he shot off into space in a rocket from his backyard in Giridih, accompanied by his loyal but not-toointelligent servant Prahlad, his cat Newton, and Bidhushekhar, his robot with an attitude. What has become of the professor? Has he decided to stay on in Mars, his original destination? Or has he found his way to some other planet and is living there with strange companions? His last diary tells an incredible story . . . Other diaries unearthed from his abandoned laboratory reveal stranger and even more exciting adventures involving a ferocious sadhu, a revengeful mummy and a mad scientist in Norway who turns famous men into six-inch statues. Exciting, imaginative and funny, the stories in this collection capture the sheer magic of Ray s lucid language, elegant style, graphic descriptions and absurd humour. The indomitable Professor Shonku has returned, to win himself over a whole new band of followers!

Informations

• Publié par: Penguin Books Ltd
• Date de parution: 05 juillet 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9788184753301
• Langue: English

Extrait

SATYAJIT RAY
The Diary of a Space Traveller and Other Stories

Translated from the Bengali by Satyajit Ray and Gopa Majumdar
Introduction by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

PUFFIN
Contents
Introduction by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
The Diary of a Space Traveller
Professor Shonku and the Bones
Professor Shonku and the Macaw
Professor Shonku and the Mysterious Sphere
Professor Shonku and Chee-ching
Professor Shonku and the Little Boy
Professor Shonku and the Spook
Professor Shonku and Robu
Professor Shonku and the Egyptian Terror
Professor Shonku and the Curious Statuettes
Professor Shonku and the Box from Baghdad
Corvus
Classic Plus
Translator s Note
Acknowledgements
Copyright Page
Introduction
It is no exaggeration to say that Satyajit Ray s Professor Shonku is his most popular literary character. Most Bengali children growing up in Calcutta in the 1960s would eagerly wait for each new issue of the children s magazine, Sandesh , so they could read about the latest adventure of this intrepid, endearing scientist. To how many new worlds did the professor transport us! Not only did we travel with him all over the globe: to Baghdad to discover the secret of a magic box locked away for 4000 years in a tomb, to Heidelberg to converse with scientists and scholars who were toiling to create the perfect robot, or to Norway to examine the mystery behind the most lifelike dolls humans have ever seen. We also zoomed with him through space into other worlds, both beautiful and terrifying, or had them (as in the case of the tiny, deadly planet Terratum) intrude into his (and by extension, our) home.
An avid reader of science fiction himself, Ray gives us, in these stories, many details that might seem commonplace or tame to today s readers, brought up as they are on Ray Bradbury and Isaac Asimov and a slew of movies from Alien to I, Robot : intergalactic travel to other intelligent planets, super-smart (and loyal) robots, serums that make humans invisible, or reduce them to pint-sized beings. But when he first wrote of these things, they were astonishing to his young fans, exposing them to new concepts that opened up sparkling vistas of the imagination. Even today, many of Shonku s inventions-a machine that enables one to see ghosts, or a Microsonograph that allows one to hear the cries emitted by flowers when they are plucked, or an Air-conditioning pill that creates the perfect atmosphere around one s body, or a deodorant made from thirty-six flowers that is effective enough to erase even the stench of a dead mummy-remain intriguing, timely or relevant to our needs. (In fact, when I visited Calcutta this past summer and faced an epidemic of powercuts, I found myself thinking that I could have used an Air-conditioning pill-and perhaps the professor s deodorant as well!)
Professor Shonku is not merely a scientist fashioned after the heroes of Jules Verne or H.G. Wells and plunked down in Calcutta. Ray has given his adventures a definite Indian dimension that is at once appealing and unique. The professor (whose curiosity and stubbornness are constantly landing him in trouble) moves with ease from the world of futuristic invention to one of timeless magic; to encounter a dead ancestor who looks just like him, or a vengeful sadhu who knows a spell to bring dead animals back to life, or a magician who can turn a lizard into a Chinese dragon, or an Egyptian mummy and its modern-day descendant whose lives are somehow linked. The stories leave us-like other children s stories by Ray-with the sense that it is a mysterious, enchanting, ever-amazing world that we inhabit. This sense of wonder is as valuable (and perhaps rarer) for children today as it was for the children of the 1960s, and that is one reason why I am so pleased that these stories have now been translated and re-published and thus made available to a larger, global audience.
In etching Professor Shonku s household, Ray has given us another most attractive dimension: the animal world with which the professor interacts. Which child-and in fact, which adult-can resist being charmed by his cat Newton, who alerts him to danger and even saves him from it on certain occasions, and who faithfully follows him into outer space? Or by the beautiful South American macaw that is sent to spy on Shonku by a rival scientist but ends up becoming his friend and ally? Who would not want a crow as intelligent and well trained as Corvus, who can not only solve complex scientific problems and answer questions on geography and history, but also foil the magician who tries to steal him, to be his beloved companion? In their simple, non-moralizing way, these stories could change the way readers view the animal world, making them more aware and appreciative, making them realize that we are but one among thousands of species that consider the earth their home.
And isn t that, ultimately, what a well-written book of science fiction can do for readers who are willing to be transported into new realms, to be charmed by things that people around them have insisted are impossible? It can make us see our world-the world we are used to glancing at casually, indifferently, with a jaded eye-anew. It can open us to the limitless possibility of what the undaunted human spirit can create. It can remind us that universe upon unexplored universe await us. It can bring back the wonder with which, once upon a time, we faced each day, thinking anything could happen, anytime!
I invite you-you who are young, and you who are young at heart-to open these pages, make Professor Shonku s acquaintance, and be transported and charmed. I invite you to relearn possibility and wonder.
September 2008
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
The Diary of a Space Traveller
It was from Tarak Chatterjee that I got Professor Trilokeshwar Shonku s diary.
One afternoon, as I was sitting in my office, correcting the proof of an article scheduled for a Puja magazine, Tarak Babu turned up and dropped a red notebook on my desk. Read it, he said, it s a goldmine.
He had brought short stories for me earlier. They were not all that good, but Tarak Babu was once known to my father, and judging by the state of his clothes, he wasn t exactly well off. So I always gave him a little money when he brought me a story to read. This time, when he produced a diary instead of a story, I was naturally surprised.
Professor Shonku had disappeared about fifteen years ago. Some believed that something had gone terribly wrong while he was doing an experiment, and that had killed him. But others were wont to say that he was still alive. He was just hiding in some remote corner of the country to continue his work in secret. He would come out when the time was right. I had no idea if any of these speculations was correct, but I did know that Professor Shonku was a scientist. That he should have kept a diary seemed natural enough. The question was, how did Tarak Chatterjee get hold of it?
When I asked him, Tarak Babu smiled. Then he reached out, helped himself to a clove and cardamom from my little box of spices, and said, Do you remember that case in the Sunderbans?
Oh God, was he going to tell me another story about a tiger? Tarak Babu had this most annoying habit of dragging a tiger into whatever anecdote he happened to relate. Irritated, I asked, Which case do you mean?
That meteorite. There is only one case, surely?
Yes, that was true. I remembered reading about it. About a year ago, a meteorite had fallen in the Matharia district in the Sunderbans. It was pretty large, possibly twice the size of the one kept in the museum in Calcutta. When I saw its picture in a newspaper, it had looked vaguely like a dark human skull.
What has that meteorite got to do with this notebook? I asked.
I am coming to that, don t get impatient. I went there in the hope of getting a few tiger skins. They are in great demand, and it s often possible to get a good price. You knew that, didn t you? So I thought, surely I d find three or four tigers among all those animals that were killed? But no. Perhaps I got there too late. There was not a single tiger, or any other animal. Not even a dead deer.
Oh? So what did you do?
All I could find were some snake skins. And that notebook.
Somewhat taken aback, I said, That notebook? You mean it was just lying there?
Yes, bang in the middle of the crater. When that meteorite fell, it created a massive crater. You ve seen Lake Hedo in Calcutta, haven t you? Well, that crater was more than four times its size, I can tell you! That notebook was lying at its centre.
Really?
Yes. I could see something red poking out of the ground. So I went and pulled it out. Then I saw Professor Shonku s name on it, and promptly put it in my pocket.
A notebook no, a diary found in the crater left by a meteorite? Could it mean ?
Read it, just read it. You ll learn everything. You write fiction, don t you? You make things up? So do I. This is far more gripping. I would not have parted with it, but right now my pocket s totally empty. So
As it happened, I did not have a lot of cash with me at that moment. Besides, I could not quite believe his story, so I gave him twenty rupees. But Tarak Babu seemed happy enough with that. He offered me his blessings and left.
Durga Puja started not long after that day. I became so busy that I totally forgot about the diary. I came upon it only recently, when I pulled a fat dictionary out of a bookshelf, and the diary slipped out from behind it.
I picked it up and opened it. At once, something struck me as odd. As far as I could remember, the colour of the ink had been green the first time when I d looked at it. Now it was red. How could that be?
I put the diary in my pocket. Obviously, I had made a mistake. Maybe I d seen something else written in green ink and confused it with the writing in the diary. Anyone could make a mistake like that.
My heart skipped a b