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Ray’s alter ego Shonku now has his own calendar

After the big screen debut with ‘Professor Shonku O El Dorado’, we now get to see a calendar on Satyajit Ray‘s iconic character Shonku. This calendar titled ‘The Global Footprints of Professor Shonku‘ – along with short descriptions and Satyajit Ray’s own illustrations, explores Professor Shonku’s adventures not only in his hometown Giridih but also around the world like the Amazon rainforests, Congo, Egypt, Tibet, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Norway, Bolivia, Chile, the Sahara and Taklamakan deserts, and even some mysterious, imaginary islands.

“Trilokeshwar Shonku, popularly known as Professor Shonku, is a genius and a scientist-inventor. He lives a humble life in Giridih – a small town in Jharkhand – with his servant Prahlad, and his pet cat Newton. Shonku is a true polyglot – he is fluent in 69 languages including the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. Every day, he goes for a morning walk on the banks of the river Ushri and keeps a diary with his Waterman fountain pen. These are the characteristics we have tried to imbibe in the illustrations,” said Sandip Ray, the director of the first Shonku film at the calendar launch event.

The calendar is not only a collector’s item but also has illustrations by Satyajit Ray, curated by Sandip and designed by Pinaki De. “Both Feluda and Shonku are alter egos of Satyajit Ray himself. When he was writing about Feluda’s travels, he had actually been to those places. But in case of Shonku he wrote about all the places he wanted to go to, but couldn’t in his lifetime,” explained Sandip Ray while speaking about the travels of Shonku.