By Tirthankar Mitra
KOLKATA: Mani Shankar Mukherjee, better named as Shankar, passed away in Kolkata on Friday, February 20 imparting grief to thousands of his readers who enjoyed his story telling power portrayed through hundreds of his works. He was 92. One hardly comes across a person who is better known by his middle name; such persons are exceptions. So was Mani Shankar Mukherjee, whose middle name Shankar came in the same breath as his bestselling novels.
Inarguably, he stood out in more ways than one apart from being known by his middle name A corporate top honcho as a public relations man, MSM as he was known among his professional fraternity wore the executive’s hat and that of an extraordinary penman with equal ease.
His hours before he left for his place of work, Sankar was at his writing desk. And one has to storm one’s brain to find out how his fruits of labour turned into one best selling tome..after another
Once in his office, his persona took leave of Shankar the author and encased himself in the garb of a burra sahib, one who had his finger on his firm’s pulse. Resplendent in jacket and tie, he busied himself in in-house meetings and audio visual presentations to show his company in the best light.
Back at home, the author took over. Often asked how he could set aside workplace worries and write about the world and its inhabitants, he replied with a beatific smile.
Walking back to the years of his early life when he did odd jobs as diverse as a salesman of baskets to a typist and thereafter as a clerk of Noel Frederick Barwell, the last English barrister of Calcutta High Court can one trace his initiation to hard work. An untimely death of his father of his father, a lawyer in Howrah court left him to be the sole bread earner of a large family.
Shankar had firsthand experience of poverty and its ignominious fallouts. He had also savoured the pleasures of a cushy job and the comforts that came with it
Small wonder, be it Koto Ajanare which was his 1955 debut novel in which he recalled the joys and sorrows at Calcutta High Court or Samrat O Sundari telling the travails of an actress ss she encounters the designs of a theatre owner, the novels gripped the readers attention. Entranced by the smooth flow in which every detail is perfectly depicted, the readers asked for more.
Once dubbed a “one book wonder’ after Koto Ajanare (The Great Unknown), Shankar silenced all criticism about his literary abilities after publication of his second novel Chowringhee. Authored in the backdrop of a five star hotel Shahjahan, the high and mighty of the then Calcutta society bared their pain and passion in it. So was hypocrisy of the high society and the heroism of those beyond its borders.
Inarguably, Chowringhee was the first of Sankar’s novel which portrayed strong women characters. Connie the cabaret dancer and Karabi Guha, the hostess of a company’s suite who was called upon to act beyond her call if duty are gems of women characters in Bengali literature.
This novel was to be his magnum opus. And it’s translation in English, international fame courted the boy from Howrah. After this book was made into a film where Uttam Kumar essayed a remarkable role of Sattya Bose, a front desk manager. It was icing on the cake of Shankar’s literary career.
There was no looking back thereafter. Shankar became synonymous with bestsellers. Seemabaddha (The Limited Company) and Jana Aranya (The Middleman) both of which glowed from Shankar ‘s pen were made into films by Satyajit Ray in his Calcutta trilogy series. The former brings out the highs and lows of the career of an ambitious corporate manager at whose machinations the company declared a lockout ensuring his elevation to the board of directors as labour unrest has saved the firm from paying huge demurrage.
Jana Aranya is about the pain of a jobless youth who tries his hand at business. To secure a contract, he acts against his conscience nay sells it.
Apart from the films where Ray is at his best, the readers are struck with wonder at Shankar’s writing skills. If his feel of the corporate life helped him in Seemabaddha, his knowledge of middle class Bengali psyche came out in print in Jana Aranya.
Shankar wrote compactly and copiously. Very few authors knew the world of success and failure and the innate seeds of stagnation in them like him and brought it out in his works. In his last years, he was busy in writing story books on Swami Vivekananda and Sri Ramakrishna Paramhansa. On this score also, as a writer, he achieved big success.
Shankar has been prolific in his writing for the last seven decades but his popularity among the Bengali readers never waned. With his passing away, Bengali readers will lose the charm of storytelling in a most lucid manner savvy with both young and old. (IPA Service)
