Chander Pahar

           Bibhutibhusan Bandopadhyay

This adventurous novel tells about an extra ordinary journey of an ordinary village boy Shankar to Africa. It was in 1909, five years before World War I. Shankar, a middle class Bengali village boy, just passed out from college, expected from his family to be employed and took all household responsibilities. But Shankar’s feisty athletic mind was full of wanderlust. Instead of doing monotonous job in jute mill, Shankar grabbed the opportunity of a station master job in Africa which was brought by one of his neighbour.

 At first, Shankar got a job with a company laying railway tracks from Mombasa to Kisumu. Starting his job as a clerk and storekeeper, very soon he transferred to another place, named Uganda. Here, he worked as a Station Master. As Africa is well known for its wild inhabitant, Shankar also faced several animal attacks. At first, he was attacked by man eater lion, followed by venomous snake like ‘Black Mamba’. But, still he never lost his hope from continuing work in Uganda.

Shankar became more influenced when he met wounded Portuguese traveler Diego Alverez.  Shankar saved his life. Then Alvarez explained that his exploits in Africa with his friend Jim Carter and also gave details how they were attracted by the priceless yellow diamond and searched for these yellow diamond caves on the Mountain of the Moon in the Richter veldt. There, it was rumored that the diamond cave was protected by a diabolical creature, called Bunyip and unfortunately Carter was supposedly killed by bunyip.

The breathing, freshening, menacing picture of the jungle and the flora and fauna with the human existence including the volcanic eruption made the whole journey more adventurous.

Shankar got inspired by Alvarez and resigned his job and gave company with Alvarez for exploring the mine. But the journey was not so easy. Both of them were attacked by the devilish creature bunyip. Although, Shankar was saved but Diego lost his life. Even, after losing Diego, Shankar’s journey remained unabated. At last, he discovered the diamond cave and found the remaining part of Italian explorer  Attilio Gatti. 

At the time of returning, Shankar became lost in the desert of Kalahari and almost died of thirst. Fortunately, he was rescued by an African survey team and was taken to a hospital in Rhodesia. Before returning to home, he wrote his journey in a newspaper and earned money and he promised to come back again.