Human chemistry in urban ambience
Farida Shaikh goes through an amazing maze of life
During the later period of the twentieth century, one work which gathered tremendous popularity in Bengali literature and reached the status of a classic was Kato Ajanaray. It was a huge achievement for young, nineteen-year old writer Shankar. The work was first serialized in1953 in the periodical Desh. The book is dedicated to the memory of Noel Frederick Barnwell. He was the last English barrister of Kolkata High Court and first came to Bengal on a military assignment during World War I. Subsequently, he began to practise in the High Court. He is the main character in the novel Shankar was at a loss with the sudden death of Barnwell. He wanted to honor his mentor. At first, he 'wanted to build a statue.' This was not possible. Next, he wanted to name a road after him. When this did not happen, Sankar decided to write a book about him. This was Shankar's first novel, and according to some critics, the most 'stimulating' one. In Kolkata, Shankar took up his first job as a clerk to barrister Barnwell who gave him, Mani Shankar Mukherji, the portable name Sankar and introduced him to the corporate world, and to literary circles. 'He helped me to familiarize myself with everybody - from the simple shoeshine boy to the senior executive.' In 1959, a cult movie and theatre based on the novel was made portraying Karuna Banerjee, the legendary actor of Satyajit Roy's Pather Pachali trilogy. Shankar was among 50 writers who were in London for the April 20-23 book fair this year which focused on India. Commenting on his first novel, he said, '… It's my wish to see that book translated into English one day.' In 1962, Shankar produced Chowronghee 'on a rainy day at the water logged crossing of Central Avenue, Dalhousie, a busy business district in Kolkata.' The novel is set in the huge hotel Shahjahan. Even though it became a bestseller, the gossip was, 'Oh, he is an illiterate. What does he know about writing?' Chowronghee chronicles life in a hotel called Shahjahan and the bar Mumtaz. 'Everything comes to the old hotel, either to the sumptuous guest rooms or to the terrace where the staff live. Love and death are never far away.' Several people whose lives came together were in the suites and restaurants of the hotel. The story is a microcosm of life in post-independence Kolkata in the 1950s and predates Arthur Hailey's Hotel by three years. The book has been translated into Russian, besides many Indian languages. Literary critics now claim that 'this half-century old novel translated from the Bengali might, to many eyes, supply more unashamed, reader-transporting enjoyment than any other fiction of the year,' meaning 2009, at the London Book Fair. The English translation of Chowronghee into Chowringhee is by former journalist Arunava Sinha, who won the Vodafone Crossword award 2007 for best translation. One reader's comment on the work: 'I won't be quite alone in claiming that you want to turn the pages, but you do not want the pages to end.' Shankar in his first book wrote about the familiarity he gathered and the friendship he built while working as a clerk at Temple Chamber situated in the old post office street in Kolkata. His second book is based on the experiences and impressions he had during the period in working as a secretary to the manager of Shahjahan hotel and later on at the reception desk, which is now defunct Spencer's in the central Kolkata neighborhood of Chowringhee. Shankar's idea of the book emerged while he was still in the service of Noel Barnwell, 'who stayed for a long time at the Spencer's hotel… and I was a frequent visitor to the hotel. It was through common friends at Spencer's that I came to know what was happening at the Great Eastern Hotel, one of the biggest hotels in the metropolis then. It was from there that my love affair with hotels began.' Chowringhee, then, is a sequel to his first novel Kato Ajanaray, as Noel Fredrick Barnwell connects both novels. On the charismatic central character of the Shahjahan hotel, the writer noted, 'I got the idea to create the debonair Sata Bose, the receptionist, from a railway employee I chanced across. His name was Satya Sadhan Bose and since he had many sahib friends, he refused to be identified by anything but Sata Bose.' Other characters - the enigmatic hotel manager Marco Polo, the tragic hostess Karabi Guha - attained almost cult status. The novel became a classic. Pinaki Majumdar turned this novel into a Bengali cine classic portraying the all time suave Bengali hero, Uttam Kumar. Moreover, his other works, Jana Aranya and Sheemabaddha drew the attention of the legendary Bangla moviemaker Satyajit Ray, whose cinematic talent supersedes, according to some critics, that of the Scandinavian maestro Ingmar Bergman. Published in June this year, The Middleman is the second translation of Shankar's novels by Arunava Sinha. It is a story of young Somnath Banerjee in search of a job during the 1970s in Kolkata, amidst widespread unemployment of the educated. The Middleman is the highest selling Bengali novel of all time, having crossed the quarter million mark. The difference between Chowronghee and The Middleman is that, 'the first is a fairy tale and the second is hard reality…Somnath, the protagonist, is like a tired bird from the sky that comes crashing down to earth,' says Shankar. 'The Middleman is the experience of those Bengalis who looked for jobs but couldn't find any. The shift to becoming self-employed is difficult; full of culture clashes.' The writer has elaborated thus: 'Since independence, everything has changed for the worse - freedom brought the humiliation of partition, decadence, industrial slide and moral dilemmas. The weaker sections lost their ideals and began to look at success with suspicion. How can success be achieved through fair means?' said Shankar, explaining the social relevance of the book. 'But I haven't lost heart and I am still a great believer in relationships and extended families,' he said. Currently Shankar is working on biographies, and comments… 'It is a new genre; but biographies are not much different from fiction. Lives are more fictional than fiction. It is only that fiction has fictitious characters," he said. Sankar's latest biography, The Unknown Face of Vivekananda - Part I, has sold more than 89,000 copies, which according to the author is a feat in itself for a biography. 'I am almost through with my Part II and then I will begin work on The Unknown Face of Aurobindo. The biography will focus on an interesting detail about the revolutionary-turned-spiritualist's personal life - his equation with his wife. 'Aurobindo advertised on the matrimonial columns of newspapers while in Baroda for a suitable partner. And came to Calcutta to marry.' Shankar, 75, living the diamond years of his life, is a master storyteller --- comparable to Charles Dickens whose stories were also about the common and the ordinary set against the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution in England, or Victor Hugo, who wrote against the city background of Paris that shaped up the characters of his novel. Both Kato Ajanaray and Chowronghee are contemporary historical novels etched in episodes of humour, irony, pain, passion and a zest for life. In the first one, it is a depiction of emerging urban lifestyles seen and heard from the Temple Chamber in Kolkata High Court Building on the old post office street. In the second, it is all about the fast cosmopolitan city society, western ways in an eastern setting with the rambling roles of personalities. Shankar's Chowronghee is a read on human chemistry in an urban ambience. It is fascinating, in beautiful Bangla that flows like a running river!
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