Speaking of Satyajit Ray, I thought I might risk going out on the limb of historical obscurities and share an article by Debjani Sengupta (PDF) I came across that talks about early Bengali science fiction writing.
The article is from the journal Sarai, which is published in Delhi. Some of the articles offer some truly impenetrable jargon -– even with writing on familiar topics (Bollywood, Call Centers, and so on). But there are also a number of well-written and informative articles on things like Parsi theater in Bombay in the 1800s that I would highly recommend.
On to Bengali science fiction. Even the fact that it existed as early as the 1880s may be a little shocking, since most studies of Bengali literature tend to center around Tagore — who was extremely doubtful about modern technology. (Read his account of flying in an airplane here.) But the effects of the industrial revolution were being felt in urban India in the 19th century just as keenly as they were in Europe and the U.S., and at least some Indian writing reflected that. Probably the best, most enduring writing in this genre came from a single family –- Sukumar Ray (in the 1910s and 20s) and his son Satyajit Ray, who was a highly accomplished writer when he wasn’t making making world class art films. But according to Sengupta the people who originated the genre in the 1880s were lesser known writers. For instance, the author mentions one Hemlal Dutta Rashashya:
Asimov’s statement that “true science fiction could not really exist until people understood the rationalism of science and began to use it with respect in their stories” is actually true for the first science fiction written in Bangla. This was Hemlal Dutta’s Rahashya (“The Mystery”) that was published in two installments in 1882 in the pictorial magazine Bigyan Darpan, brought out by Jogendra Sadhu. The story revolved around the protagonist Nagendra’s visit to a friend’s house, a mansion completely automated and where technology is deified. Automatic doorbell, burglar alarms, brushes that clean suits mechanically are some of the innovations described in the story, and the tone is of wonder at the rapid automation of human lives.
It seems a little hard to imagine people writing about electric doorbells and burglar alarms in the 1880s in Calcutta, but there you have it. (Doorbells were actually invented in 1830, so maybe it’s not that shocking.)
The genre really seems to get going with Sukumar Ray, who was by all accounts highly intellectually adventurous, even in the stories intended for children. (I did a short post on him here some time ago.) Like Lewis Carroll’s “Alice” stories, Sukumar RayÂ’s stories are full of mind-bending puzzles and language games. And itÂ’s quite likely that he was reading British writers like Arthur Conan Doyle and especially H.G. Wells as he was writing The Diary of Heshoram Hushiar:
Sukumar Ray (1887-1923) was probably inspired by Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World when he wrote Heshoram Hushiyarer Diary (“The Diary Of Heshoram Hushiar”). . . . It is a spoof on the genre because Sukumar is poking fun at the propensity of the scientist to name things, and that too in long-winded Latin words. He seems to be playing around the fact that names are arbitrarily conferred upon things by humans for their own convenience, and suggests that the name of a thing may somehow be intrinsically connected to its nature. So the first creature that Heshoram meets in the course of his journey through the Bandakush Mountains is a “gomratharium” (gomra in Bangla means someone of irritable temperament), a creature that sported a long woebegone face and an extremely cross expression. Soon the company comes upon another peculiar animal, not to be found in any textbook of natural sciences. They hear a terrible yowl, a sound between the cries of a “number of kites and owls” and find an animal “that was neither an alligator, nor a snake, nor a fish but resembled to a certain extent all three”. His howls make Heshoram name him “Chillanosaurus” (chillano means to shout). Although just an extract, Heshoram Hushiyarer Diary is quite unlike anything written even in Bangla.
The cross-linguistic word-play (“Gomratharium” and “Chillanosaurus”) is something that experimental modernist writers like James Joyce were doing in Europe in the 1920s too. That he was doing this speaks of Ray’s confidence as a writer, as well as a confidence that his readership would be bilingual enough to recognize Latinate English words like “aquarium” and “tyrannosaurus.”
Sukumar’s son Satyajit was also quite playful with language in the short stories he wrote. His famous “Professor Shanku” (or “Shonku”) stories are full of gadgets and devices with exotic names:
Satyajit Ray created Professor Shanku in 1961. The first SF featuring this eccentric hero was written for the magazine Sandesh and was called Byomjatrir Diary (“The Diary of the Space Traveller”). All thirty-eight complete and two incomplete diaries (the last one came out in 1992) narrate the fantastic world of Shanku’s adventures, inventions and travels. Most of these stories are more than science fiction. They are also travelogues, fantasy tales, tales of adventure and romance. . . . His sense of humour makes him peculiarly human and his list of inventions is impressive. Anhihiline, Miracural, Omniscope, Snuffgun, Mangorange, Camerapid, Linguagraph -– the list is long and impressive. Some are drugs, some gadgets, some machines, but they all have human purposes and use.
There is a joyful self-deprecating quality to Professor Shanku, as seen in his early attempts to build a rocket for space travel:
The first [rocket] that he had built was unsuccessful and had come down on his neighbour AbinashbabuÂ’s radish patch. Abinashbabu had no sympathy for Shanku; science and scientists made him yawn. He would come up to Shanku and urge him to set off the rocket for Diwali so that the neighbourhood children could be suitably entertained. Shanku wants to punish this levity and drops his latest invention in his guestÂ’s tea. This is a small pill, made after the fashion of the Jimbhranastra described in the Mahabharata. This pill does not only make one yawn, it makes one see nightmares. Before giving a dose to his neighbour, Shanku had tried a quarter bit on himself. In the morning, half of his beard had turned grey from the effect of his dreams. ShankuÂ’s world is a real world, a human world. In his preparations for the space journey he has decided to take his cat Newton with him. For that he has invented a fish-pill. “Today I tested the fish-pill by leaving it next to a piece of fish. Newton ate the pill. No more problems! Now all I have to do is make his suit and helmet.”
Ok, maybe the nightmare pill is a little bit on the darker side, but at least he tried it out on himself before dosing his neighbor. And the fish-pill that would allow him to take his cat along in outer space is a nice touch.
More Professor Shanku definitions are at the >Professor Shanku Wikipedia page:
Miracurall — a drug capsule that cures any ailment except common cold Annihillin — a pistol that simply annihilates any living thing. It does not work on non living things. Shankoplane — A small plane capable of vertical take-off and landing and magnificent mileage Shankolite – the alloy by which shankoplane was made Omniscope – a combination of telescope and microscope Air-conditioning pill – a capsule that keeps the body temperature normal in extremes of climate. Somnolin – a sleeping pill that will work in any condition
I love the idea of a miracle pill that cures everything except the common cold. The A/C pill would probably also come in handy right about now in Delhi (where the temperature is 43.5 degrees C).
The question that comes up for me in looking at this material is first of all surprise that itÂ’s talked about so little with reference to modern Indian literature. The ‘serious’ figures like Bankim Chandra Chatterjee and Rabindranath Tagore (in Bangla), and Mulk Raj Anand and R.K. Narayan (in English) are the names that tend to get referenced from before 1945. And after 1945, most literary critics have been interested in writers who dealt with political themes in their works — the independence struggle, partition, wars, corruption, and so on. That Indian writers were also interested in space travel, the automation of everyday life, and robotics from an early point suggests that the literary scene was richer than most people think. Most of the Bengali science fiction in Sengupta’s article is oriented to children, but it’s clearly quite sophisticated — entertaining for many adults in some of the same ways J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter is today.
Great post. I grew up on Sukumar Ray’s Aboltabol and you should see the intrigue that comes over the faces of adult Bangalis today when you tell them you have a copy and show it to them 🙂
“The Calcutta Chromosome” made a minor splash in the sci-fi scene a few years ago. Are there any other modern Indian sci-fi authors ?
Vikram, Two names that come to mind are Samit Basu and Vandana Singh. Samit Basu’s The Simoquin Prophecies is available here and there in the U.S. Samit is also an excellent blogger.
Vandana Singh has also published a fair number of short stories; I’m still waiting for her book.
And Ashok Banker is also usually categorized as science fiction, though fantasy might be a better term.
Ahh I hear so much about Aboltabol! (Shameless question that I am too embarrassed to ask in real life: Do you think someone with kindergarten level, 3-4 words per minute reading skills could read & enjoy it?)
Shameless question that I am too embarrassed to ask in real life: Do you think someone with kindergarten level, 3-4 words per minute reading skills could read & enjoy it?
Well, I’m in the same boat at this point, and I can’t. Woe unto those whose bangla skills reach their peak at poetry recitations at age 4 🙂
But we can probably work at it, right? 🙂
Amardeep, do you have any info on the controversy regarding ET being plagiarised from Ray’s script (think it was called ‘Alien’)?
Bengali sci-fi?! This is fascinating. Thanks, Amardeep.
Also: Woe unto those whose bangla skills reach their peak at poetry recitations at age 4 🙂 When you’re in India, pick up some Bangla elementary school primers- seriously. Once you get your reading speed up just a tiny bit, you can improve your vocab with short stories and such. It’s actually a lot of fun. (I used to be able to read a few page story… but since college I think I’m back at the poetry level. Which is not all bad- Bengali children’s poetry can keep me pretty well entertained!)
ooooh! let’s start bangla book club!
katbirrali, katbirrali… peeara thumi khao?
Thanks for bringing up the topic of children’s books in Bengali.
Bengali children’s literature is a treasure trove. I will go out on a sturdy limb and say that it can hold its own with its counterpart in any language and will almost certainly rank among the top five.
For one thing, several notable Bengali authors who wrote for adults, also wrote for children. There is no doubt that Sukumar Ray made it respectable for established authors to write children’s literature. So Bengali children would grow up reading superb short and long stories, novels, plays, fantasies, satire, humor, science fiction and poetry written by Tagore, Sukumar Ray, Rajshekhar Bose, Annadashankar Ray, Buddhadeb Bose, Bimal Mitra, Ashapurna Debi, Premendra Mitra, Narayan Gangopadhyay and many, many more. These outstanding writers wrote spiritedly, deliciously and intelligently for children and young adults. An early child reader of these authors would grow up and read the same authors’ adult works with the ease and flourish of a veteran. While writing for children, the Bengali authors scrupulously avoided the pit fall of talking down to young readers.
Another brilliant Ray who wrote superb children’s books, going off the beaten path, was Satyajit Ray’s aunt Lila Mazumdar. Her fantastic stories were not quite science fiction but steeped in enough “weirdness” to make the hair on the back of your neck stand up. Not out of fear but out of the thrill of encountering scenarios which went seamlessly from the mundane to the “almost plausible” absurd. And they were hilarious to boot.
Bengalis are (or used to be) bookish people and not for nothing. Bengali children’s lit was fully equipped to hook them early.
katbirrali, katbirrali… peeara thumi khao?…ooooh! let’s start bangla book club!
I’m down. 🙂
I think there is a decent translation of Aboltabol somewhere around. I need to go find it and buy me a copy. Besides, I knew there was an audio tape of Aboltabol at our place in Calcutta. I mean if you can’t read it, it’s just fine to have someone read it to you.
Incidentally, Sukumar Ray’s father Upendrakishore Raychaudhuri was a pretty good author himself and wrote this one book called “Tun-tunir golpo” meaning ‘Tun-tuni’s tale’ that my mom would read to me when I was about 3. It is about this little sparrow whose house gets razed by the king of the land and how this little creature trades in favours till the king suffers the consequences of his actions and promises reparation.
Thanks a lot for the post and article, Amardeep. I’m all nostalgic now.
I don’t think Tagore’s position on science and technology can be easily contrasted with the activities in the vibrant Bengali science fiction genre. The relationship is probably a little more complex than that. Tagore did have a strong streak of skepticism about technology and its potentially harmful applications. That doubt, at least partially, was rooted in his unease about the interaction of industrial revolution and the colonial exploitation. However, he was extremely curious about theoretical science – its understanding of nature and universe and how that fits in with his own Brahmo mysticism and philosophy. A lot of his short stories and essays, which are not as frequently translated and cited as his songs and poems are, bear testimony to that. Jagadish Chandra Bose, the inventor of world’s first wireless detection device and a pioneer in the field of biophysics and plant physiology, was a very close personal friend of Tagore who had repeatedly expressed his deepest admiration for Bose’s work in his essays.
Amartya Sen, in his essay Tagore and His India mentions Tagore’s greater respect for and deeper interest in science in particular, and rationalism and objectivity in general, as one of his key differences with Gandhi. The section Science and the People in that essay where he describes Tagore’s interaction with Einstein is illuminating. There is a beutiful Tagore poem with lines like – “golaaper dike cheye aami bollaam sundor, sundor holo se” (I am probably off on the exact words. Very loosely and literally translated, it means – I looked at the rose and said “beautiful”, it became beautiful) which expresses the significance he placed on the role of an observer in the perception of beauty and truth.
On to the Ray family. Their enermous contribution to scientific writing, both fiction and non-fiction, did not actually start with Sukumar. Sukumar’s father Upendrakishore RayChowdhury founded one of the earliest printing presses in Calcutta and was a pioneer of half-tone block printing. Sukumar Ray studied printing technology (and fortunately a lot of other things) in University of Manchester to learn how to run that business. Upendrakishore had written extensively on science in late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He wrote mostly non-fiction, but some of his fantasy fiction reveals his scientific temperament.
Another very important scientific and literary personality in mid-twentieth century is Parashuram (Rajsekhar Basu). A professional chemist, his short stories are a unique combination of science and satire. He had a very original and terse style of writing Bengali prose and his works are almost as untranslatable as Abol Tabol . His fiction is usually classified under humor or satire, but science has a very strong role to play. Two of Satyajit’s films – Parash Pathar and Mahapurush (the second half of Kapurush and Mahapurush) – are based on his short stories.
Premenda Mitra has correctly been identified in the article as the one of the most important and innovative writers in the genre. Tel Deben Ghanada , one of his more famous Ghanada stories, is about how Ghanada brilliantly solves the problem of reduced oil supply and avoids an impending energy crisis. It resonates nicely in these days of four-dollar-a-gallon gasolline.
Kishore Gyan Bigyan was a popular monthly periodical dedicated to SF writing. Primarily targeted for young adults, it had a lot of adult subscribers as well. I am not sure if it is still around. Most of the leading Bengali SF writers in the later part of the last century like Adrish Bardhan (creator of famous Professor Nat Baltu Chakra), Samarjit Guha and Siddhartha Ghosh used to contribute regularly.
That Tagore quote on flying is prescient about remote-control warfare, the Iraq war and the book On Killing:
Brilliant Amardeep, thank you. This has already been forwarded to my girlfriend and my Bengali sci fi brethren.
Hi Amardeep,
Thanks for pointing out the article and for this superb post – Bengali children’s (much of the scifi was meant for children) literature is a genre I grew up with and one that really inculcated in me the love for reading. I don’t think you mentioned Satyajit Tay’s grandfather Upendrakishore Ray – who also wrote books of fantasy (if not exactly science fiction) – the film ‘Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne‘ (which inspired Rushdie to name two characters after the duo) was based on his story.
Many of Satyajit Ray‘s short shories too deal with science fiction and fantasy. Ruchira already mentioned Premendra Mitra. Another prominent author who indulged heavily in scifi and fantasy writing for children is Shirshendu Mukhopadhay. His book ‘Manojder Adbhut Bari’ had a scientist character who was carrying out weird genetic experiments for producing new varieties of vegetables and fruits.
It should also be mentioned that Bengali children’s authors were well supported by a number of high quality magazines aimed solely at children: Anandamela, Sandesh (published by the Ray family), Shuktara etc.
Since Amardeep mentioned Samit Basu – his books Simoqin Prophecies and The Manticore’s Secret are actually full of references to early Bengali children’s literature.
@ Ruchira: you are right – Bengali children’s literture is filled with an embarrassement of riches. Unfortunately, there seems to be a dearth of good authors and publications right now and the children are more interested in TV, internet and Potter. Not that I am against all this, I just feel they are missing out on a great deal of fun.
Cheers, BP
Dipanjan, Bongopondit, Ruchira, and everyone — thanks for your informative comments!
Dipanjan, I enjoyed reading your account of growing up with these magazines in Calcutta.
Here’s some information:
DesiDudeinAustin – I picked up English translations of both Aboltabol and Tuntuni’r Golpo at the CIMA, during my last trip to Kolkata. I believe Penguin India’s the publisher.
And yes, it’s best read to you. By a very indulgent grandparents. My usually reserved grandfather and I would be in stitches, reading Aboltabol together.
Amardeep, thanks for the trip down memory lane…and more importantly, for pointing out that so much of what I value in Bangal lit is actually speculative fiction. Who knew? But so it is. 🙂 Ami bangal roye galaam.
for those interested in the history of sci-fi movies in general (hollywood-centered i guess), turner classic movies is showing ” Watch the Skies,” a documentary by Richard Schickel from 5:30pm-6:30pm today.
For someone whose Bengali reading skills leave much to be desired, I enjoyed watching Ray’s Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne and Hirak Rajar Deshe though this was some years ago. I wonder if these movies can still capture the imagination of children in the digital age.
Btw, did anyone else read Gopal Bhar’s funny stories?
I still have a rather dilapidated copy of Ray’s Professor Shonku’s Kandokarkhana stashed away on one of my shelves. I believe Penguin publishes the English translations, but if you can read them in Bengali, you should.
Part of the appeal of Ray’s Shonku books for children like me growing up in the 70’s was that they were not as provincial as other Bengali children’s literature: his protagonist, while remaining your typical Bengali bhodrolok, had globetrotting adventures while hobnobbing with scientists from all over the world. Moreover, Shonku was human — vain, irascible, fallible, terrified at times, he was no cold superhuman intellect. Unlike most of the two-dimensional characters in Western science fiction of the 60’s and 70’s (which one read, after all, more for the gee-whiz ideas), you could identify with him.
Thanks for the info Margin Fades. Its remarkable that so many of us read the same little stories as kids. I had a neighbour who even read Tintin in the Bengali version.
Thanks a lot to Amardeep for the trip down the memory lane with a scent of naptheline balls and dilapilated pages from Abol-Tabol and Shanku’s books.I wonder if someone someday would dare to make Shanku movies ? The stories have the depiction of awesome scientific marvels,gripping drama and the locations also strecth across Amazon-Norway-Egypt-Gobi Desert.All the elements of a block-buster are there.It could be India’s answer to Harry Potter movies.Any budding or experienced film-makers out there ?
bengali short stories are my favourite…i am looking for short bengali new age stories i mean to say for the new gen ,,,if anybody have any pdf file story e book …olz send me a copy..i willbe greatful to them…plz plz..
I have two piece of pdf file ..one is SWAPNERA NIRBASHITO THEKE JAE…and the other one is a collection of different writers…bengali short stories….
if anybody find me plz send me thru e-mail…
Dear Aniket Chatterjee, can you E-Mail me those shortstories ?
Great, informative post. I neither speak nor write Bangla, but I’m thinking I’ll have to learn considering that I’m a hardcore sci-fi and fantasy head.
I’ll be linking to this later on in the week. 🙂
http://www.5abi.com/2009-pubs/011-kaldar-roop-dhillon-250509.htm
Just like Bengali Sci Fi developed 100 years ago, now Punjabi is doing the same..yeah I am on a Sci Fi theme tonight!! Just click my name, it will take you there
Enjoyable read.
BTW Desidudeinaustin – the “tuntuni” in Tuntunir Galpo was not a sparrow but a tailor-bird…