Professor Shonku is a fictional scientist created by Satyajit Ray in a series of Bengali science fiction books published from 1965. His full name is Trilokeshwar Shonku, and by occupation, he is an inventor. He is the son of Dr. Tripureshwar Shonku.
The real name of Professor Shonku is Trilokeshwar Shonku. He lives in Giridih. He has a male-servant named Prohlad and a cat named Newton. In his story "The Astronaut's Diary" Ray introduced Professor Shonku, the protagonist of his science-fiction stories. Professor Shonku's father Tripureshwar was a physician. Professor Shonku was born on 16 June. His nickname is Tilu. Professor Shonku passed matriculation examination of the University of Calcutta at the age of 12. At the age of 16, Professor Shonku received his BSc degree with honours in two subjects, Physics and Chemistry. In Satyajit Ray's last finished novel of the series, Swarnaparnee, that was initially published in the Special Puja issue of Anandamela children's magazine in 1992, it was mentioned that at the age of 20, Professor Shonku took his first job as a professor of physics in Calcutta's Scottish Church College. Professor Shonku is a polyglot who knows 69 languages. His pet cat 'Newton' is 24 years old.
Abinash Majumdar – the completely non-scientific neighbor and friend of Shonku who never understands the magnitude of Shonku's scientific breakthroughs and often finds them humiliating, amusing or insignificant.
Nakur Chandra Biswas — a man with the supernatural power of predicting the future which he acquired from a ball lightning incident. He lives in Makarda.
Jeremy Saunders - a British geologist residing in London.
Wilhelm Krol - a German anthropologist with interests in paranormal activities who is quite unmindful.
John Summerville - a British scientist.
Prohlad - Shonku's trusted servant and housekeeper.
Newton - Shonku's long time pet cat.
Inventions of Professor Shonku
He has his own laboratory there in his house in Giridi where he researches for loads of new and fantastic inventions. His extraordinary inventions are:
Miracurall – A drug that cures any ailment, the name is a short form of Miracle Cure for All Ailments.
Annihillin – A pistol capable of annihilating anything that is living, invented because Shonku does not like bloodshed. It does not work on non living things.
Shankovite – The anti-gravity alloy by which Shankoplane was made.
Shankoplast – Wonderful plastic.
Shankalon – A variation of Shankoplast.
Omniscope – A combination of telescope, microscope and X-ray-scope which looks like and can be worn as spectacles.
Air-conditioning pill – A capsule to be kept in shirt pocket, that keeps the body temperature normal in extremes of climate.
Somnolin – A sleeping pill that will work in any condition.
Evolutin – A drug that makes people evolve 10 thousand years in 5 minutes.
Compudium – Short for Computerized Medium, a device to contact departed souls.
Remembrane – A device that makes people remember the things they forgot.
Bidhusekhar – A mechanical man with AI built with very cheap materials, programmed to answer any question asked to it.
Linguagraph – A device that translates any earth language to any other. The translation capability is supposed to include animal languages, and works on cats, plants, ants and even viruses too. However, it does not work to translate speech of aliens.
Compu – A computer brain with 10 crore delicate circuit in it. Designed by Shonku along with Matsue, Dr. John Kenseli, Dr. Stephen Merivel, Dr.Stavs, Dr. Ugatti, Prof. Sttraton, Prof. Kutna, Prof. Markus Wingfield and the workers of Namura Institute of Japan, which later develops AI via an accident.
Mangola fruit – A delicious and nutritious variety of hybrid of Mango and Amla, it earned him a doctorate from Swedish academy of sciences.
Trishnasok – A thirst quencher pill.
Tea and coffee pills
Turbolin – A sandal-scented fuel for Shonkoplane.
Artificial Diamond - Created along with Krol and Siddique following the process of Nefrudet.
Microsonograph - Machine to hear subsonic sounds and speeches.
The adventures
Professor Shonku had many adventures, in both real and fantastical places, some with historical leanings and some with great revelations connected to human civilisation. Excerpts of some interesting adventures follow:
Professor Shonku o Khoka:
A child who otherwise used to be normal, has "changed" after he fell and hurt his head. Once happy and normal, this child has become melancholy and speaks things which the parents do not follow and term as gibberish. The parents desperately seek help to get their boy back. A doctor finally suggests to see Shonku. Although initially Shonku was reluctant to see this boy as practicing medicines is not his profession — after he sees the boy it soon becomes obvious that this is indeed an extraordinary case worthy of his attention. What appeared as gibberish to his parents were actually meaningful facts which should normally be well beyond his or many other peoples reach, spoken in many different languages which the child had no way to learn. He also demonstrates psychic ability, where the flash of a camera stops working after he declares he does not want to be pictured but the reporter insists. Although the child seems to be omniscient, he appears sad and detached from the material world. The story ends when the child concocts a potion by mixing several very dangerous chemicals and acids, some of which were Shonku's own inventions, and gulps it down before Shonku had a chance to stop him. A short period of unconsciousness follows, after which the child wakes up as his normal old self. He then makes friends with Shonku, states he has no memory of things which happened in the last few days, and even asks for chocolates.
Professor Shonku o Har:
Professor Shonku meets a fakir who has this ability to re-animate a living thing from its bones. Shonku tries to investigate, which enrages the fakir and the causes him to curse Shonku. Later in his life, Shonku discovers the remains of a dinosaur in a cave along with an assistant. The curse starts to take effect and the dinosaur comes back to life.
Professor Shonku o Golok Rahasya:
Shonku gets hold of a mysterious sphere which changes its color spontaneously and emanates various sounds. In fact, the sphere is a planet from another solar system and it has brought extraterrestrial life along.
Swapnadwip:
The Professor is haunted by a repeating dream where he along, with his friends, are stranded on a beautiful exotic island without any inhabitants. His friends also experience the same dream. It is as if the mysterious island is beckoning great scientists of the world to it.
Ek Shringo Abhijan:
Shonku goes to Tibet, to find out about a Unicorn which is reported to be seen there. In the adventure, Shonku discovers a place where everybody's dreams come true... a Utopia.
Mahakasher doot:
Shonku tries to prove that human civilization has prospered thanks to the help of some alien civilisation that comes to Earth every 5000 years and teaches them something extraordinary. What are they going to reveal this time?
Nokurbabu has the ability to make others see what he is thinking. He and Shonku are caught in a chain of events that lead them to the deep jungles of South America where El Dorado has always eluded discovery.
Several sightings of UFOs makes headlines worldwide. However, this news is outdone by the news of the demolition of some of the greatest monuments of mankind. The Eiffel Tower and the Angkor Wat are destroyed, and the aliens are blamed. Nokurbabu joins Shonku and other scientists who discover that the UFO has its base in the Gobi desert. They find the UFO and go aboard. They are captured immediately, not by the aliens, but by a mad scientist who is the present owner of the UFO and who is in fact the destroyer of the monuments, driven because he was denied his due honour in the scientific community. His next target is the Taj Mahal.
Punashcha Professor Shonku. Ananda Publishers, Calcutta 1993.
Selam Professor Shonku. Ananda Publishers, Calcutta, 1995.
Shonku Samagra Ananda Publishers, Kolkata January 2002,
Professor Shonku in other media
Comics
Some of Professor Shonku stories has been made into comics and published by Ananda Publishers.
Radio
In the Sunday Suspense Series of 98.3 Radio Mirchi several Professor Shonku stories has been performed by RJs, like- Mir and Deep.
Film
The film was announced officially in November 2017. It has been titled Professor Shonku O El Dorado, the pre-production of the film has been started in 2018 and released on 20 December 2019. The film is based on the story named Nakurbabu O El Dorado. Actor Dhritiman Chatterjee, who acted in a number of films by Satyajit Ray, portrayed the title role in the film, produced by Shree Venkatesh Films.
