The intrepid adventurers in Mountain of the Moon

[The book is available at various online stores such as Rupa, Flipkart, Infibeam, Bookadda, Crossword, Linuxbazar (!!), and at Rediff.com.]

The author introduces us to four fictional adventurers besides his hero - Albuquerque, Jim Carter, Diego Alvarez and Attilio Gatti.

Curiously enough, two of these names have some historical significance, although far removed from the roles they played in Bibhutibhushan's story.

Diego Alvarez is one of the names of a tiny inhabited island in the South Atlantic Ocean. Here's what Wikipedia has to say:

"The first recorded discovery of Gough Island was in 1505 or 1506 by the Portuguese explorer Gonçalo Álvares. Maps during the next three centuries named the island for him. On some later maps, this was given as Diego Alvarez." For more, read on here.

Attilio Gatti, on the other hand, was a real explorer! According to Wikipedia, "Gatti was among the last great safari expedition men. He led ten expeditions to Africa over 23 years before 1945. He became one of the Europeans to see the fabled Okapi, and the Bongo, a brown Lyre horned antelope with white stripes. He was an enthusiastic amateur radio operator, OQ5ZZ, and tried to operate from the Congo deep inland regions. He knew the Pygmy peoples of the Congo Regions very well. He wrote many books on his expeditions, including Killers All!, The New Africa, Here is Africa, Saranga the Pygmy, Africa is Adventure, Kamanda the African Boy, Great Mother Forest, Mediterranean Spotlights, Here is the Veld, Tom Toms in the Night, and South of the Sahara, (Robert McBride & Company 1945). Gatti's books contain invaluable anthropological material from his descriptions of the native peoples he met. Gatti also took good photos of Pygmys and Watussi. He met an important female python shaman. He became experienced with African magic and an entire world that no longer exists."



You'll find a list of his books here. This picture below is that of Attilio and Ellen Gatti.

Doubtless Bibhutibhushan must have read about Gatti's exploits in contemporary newspapers and journals.

My top 10 albums - Kind of Blue (No. 2)

Wikipedia says: "Though precise figures have been disputed, Kind of Blue has been described by many music writers not only as Davis's best-selling album, but as the best-selling jazz record of all time...The album's influence on music...has led music writers to acknowledge it as one of the most influential albums of all time. In 2002, it was one of fifty recordings chosen that year by the Library of Congress to be added to the National Recording Registry. In 2003, the album was ranked number 12 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time."

This was the first, the classic, one of the most recognizable covers of all time, shot by Jay Meisel.



When this was digitally remastered and reissued as a CD, the cover changed. The Miles Davis on the new cover was that of the late 1970s and 1980s. Not the successful young business in the Wall Street suit.



For the legal minds reading this, the original cover has a recent legal history, all to do with copyright. Read this.

There has always been a bit of controversy about the music - who wrote what, and should have been credited, but was not. This was mainly about the pianist, the great Bill Evans. Here's a note from the Bill Evans Website. "Bill Evans was the pianist in Miles Davis' group in 1958, and after a few tracks recorded and less than a year touring with the band, left to form his own trio and expand his career,. He was called back to play on the now legendary "Kind of Blue" album in the spring of 1959. According to many sources, Miles concept for the modally-conceived tunes of the sessions was indeed based on the playing of Evans. Bill, in fact, penned "Blue In Green" (though the writer's credit still usually goes to Miles, the Miles Davis Estate has finally admitted in 2002 on the official website , that Evans wrote the tune) and his piano sound is so much a part of the ambience of this historic album. "Kind of Blue" also featured the legendary musicians John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderly, Paul Chambers and Jimmy Cobb. ... These liner notes below, written by Bill Evans, appear on the original recording sleeve."

"There is a Japanese visual art in which the artist is forced to be spontaneous. He must paint on a thin stretched parchment with a special brush and black water paint in such a way that an unnatural or interrupted stroke will destroy the line or break through the parchment. Erasures or changes are impossible. These artists must practice a particular discipline, that of allowing the idea to express itself in communication with their hands in such a direct way that deliberation cannot interfere.

"The resulting pictures lack the complex composition and textures of ordinary painting, but it is said that those who see well find something captured that escapes explanation.

"This conviction that direct deed is the most meaningful reflections, I believe, has prompted the evolution of the extremely severe and unique disciplines of the jazz or improvising musician.

"Group improvisation is a further challenge. Aside from the weighty technical problem of collective coherent thinking, there is the very human, even social need for sympathy from all members to bend for the common result. This most difficult problem, I think, is beautifully met and solved on this recording.

"As the painter needs his framework of parchment, the improvising musical group needs its framework in time,. Miles Davis presents here frameworks which are exquisite in their simplicity and yet contain all that is necessary to stimulate performance with sure reference to the primary conception.

"Miles conceived these settings only hours before the recording dates and arrived with sketches which indicated to the group what was to be played. Therefore, you will hear something close to pure spontaneity in these performances. The group had never played these pieces prior to the recordings and I think without exception the first complete performance of each was a "take.""

If you don't have KoB yet (!!???!) go out and get it. NOW!!

My top 10 albums - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (No. 1)

Paul was dead. Yes, he was dead, dead, dead!

As the Time Special wrote, "Paul McCartney never wrote "Maybe I'm Amazed." He never formed the band Wings. He never clashed with Yoko, became a vegetarian, or fathered any of his children. When Queen Elizabeth knighted him in 1997, she was actually knighting someone else. This is because, conspiracy-minded Beatlemaniacs say, Paul McCartney secretly died in 1966. Theorists claim the other Beatles covered up his death — hiring someone who looked like him, sang like him, and had the same jovial personality. But the guilt eventually got to them and they began hiding clues in their music. In the song "Taxman," George Harrison gave his "advice for those who die," meaning Paul. The entire Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album was awash with Paul-is-dead clues: the Beatles had formed a "new" band featuring a fictional member named Billy Shears — supposedly the name of Paul's replacement. The album contained John Lennon's "A Day in the Life," which had the lyrics "He blew his mind out in a car" and the recorded phrase "Paul is dead, miss him, miss him," which becomes evident only when the song is played backward. Lennon also mumbled, "I buried Paul" at the end of "Strawberry Fields Forever" (in interviews, Lennon said the phrase was actually "cranberry sauce" and denied the existence of any backward messages).

"Paul-is-dead believers think the Beatles accompanied these backward tape loops and veiled references to death with album covers that illustrated the loss of their friend. The original cover of 1966's Yesterday and Today album featured the Beatles posed amid raw meat and dismembered doll parts — symbolizing McCartney's gruesome accident. If fans placed a mirror in front of the Sgt. Pepper album cover, the words Lonely Hearts on the drum logo could be read as "1 ONE 1 X HE DIE 1 ONE 1." And of course, there's the Abbey Road cover, on which John, George and Ringo forwent all pretense and pretended to cross the street as a funeral procession. John wore all white, like a clergyman. Ringo, the mourner, dressed in black. George donned jeans, like a gravedigger. Paul wore no shoes (he didn't need them, because he was dead) and walked out of step with the others.

"If Paul is dead, then his imposter is still at large. He met and married Linda Eastman, with whom he had four children before losing her to breast cancer in 1998. He released a live album in 1993 called Paul Is Live (likely story), and produced more than 20 solo albums — and that's not even counting the ones released by Wings. Then he endured a horrible divorce from Heather Mills, which may have made him wishhe were dead — or, at least, were still Billy Shears. So who is the real McCartney? The world may never know."

The cover has always been a quiz to aficions, Beatles fans, rock music fans, and the just plain curious. For all who are interested, here is the key to identifying the people pictured.

1. Sri Yukteswar (Indian Guru) 2. Aleister Crowley (black magician) 3. Mae West 4. Lenny Bruce 5. Stockhausen (modern German composer) 6. W.C. Fields 7. Carl Jung (psychologist) 8. Edgar Allen Poe 9. Fred Astaire 10. Merkin (American artist) 12. Huntz Hall (Bowery Boy) 13. Simon Rodia (creater of Watts Towers) 14. Bob Dylan 15. Aubrey Beardsly (Victorian artist) 16. Sir Robert Peel (Police pioneer) 17. Aldous Huxley (philosopher) 18. Dylan Thomas (Welsh poet) 19. Terry Southern (author) 20. Dion (American pop singer) 21. Tony Curtis 22. Wallace Berman (Los Angeles artist) 23. Tommy Handley (wartime comedian) 24. Marilyn Monroe 25. William Buroughs (author) 26. Mahavatar Babaji (Indian Guru) 27. Stan Laurel 28. Richard Lindner (New York artist)29. Oliver Hardy 30. Karl Marx 31. H.G. Wells 32. Paramhansa Yogananda (Indian Guru) 33. Stuart Sutcliffe 35. Max Muller 37. Marlon Brando 38. Tom Mix (cowboy film star) 39. Oscar Wilde 40. Tyrone Power 41. Larry Bell (modern painter) 42. Dr. Livingstone 43. Johnny Weissmuller (Tarzan) 44. Stephen Crane (American writer) 45. Issy Bonn (comedian) 46. George Bernard Shaw 47. Albert Stubbins (Liverpool footballer) 49. Lahiri Mahasaya (Indian Guru) 50. Lewis Carol 51. Sonny Liston (boxer) 52 - 55. The Beatles (in wax) 57. Marlene Dietrich 58. Diana Dors 59. Shirley Temple 60. Bobby Breen (singing prodigy) 61. T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia)

This has also spawned admirers who have flattered by imitation. Here are two of the best known:





This is appropriately called The Yellow Album!

The Art of the Semi-Autobiographical Novel

Not my own work, I hasten to add. But brilliant nonetheless. I don't know where it was originally posted - it came to me via a friend. Read on.
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To assuage our interest and close the circle, we decided to follow up with a list of a few of our favorite semi-autobiographical novels — that is, novels wherein at least one character is based on the author, and usually containing a plot that revolves around the author’s true-life experiences. Click through to check out ten of our favorite semi-autobiographical novels, from the barely-veiled straight autobiographies to the masterful collages of life and fiction. We know there are hundreds and hundreds of these, so please chime in and let us know your own favorite semi-autobiographies in the comments!

We the Animals, Justin Torres

Justin Torres’s unbelievably exquisite debut novel could be described as a collection of searing anecdotes, gradually easing the narrator away from his collective self-awareness as part of three brothers (“We were six snatching hands, six stomping feet; we were brothers, boys, three little kings locked in a feud for more”) to the painful, necessary schism into “they” and “I.” He admits that he drew much of the story and characters from his own life, and when we saw him read, he laughed large at the “how autobiographical is it really?” question and shrugged, but the more he spoke, the more he seemed like his narrator. “Your consciousness is informed by your experience,” he said. “It’s just how the mind works.”

Black Swan Green, David Mitchell 

Though you may not know it (unless you’ve read this novel), celebrated author David Mitchell suffers from a stammer. In an article he wrote celebrating The King’s Speech for being the first film to accurately portray the speech defect as he experiences it, he wrote, “Despite growing up in a much saner family than the Duke of York’s, my open and kind parents and I discussed my speech impediment exactly never, and this “don’t mention the stammer” policy was continued by friends and colleagues into my thirties. I’d probably still be avoiding the subject today had I not outed myself by writing a semi-autobiographical novel, Black Swan Green, narrated by a stammering 13 year old.”

Dandelion Wine, Ray Bradbury

Though not his most famous work, Dandelion Wine is a beautiful, magical rumination on boyhood and the myth of the eternal summer. Recently, just before Bradbury’s 91st birthday, it was announced that Black Swan producer Mike Medavoy would produce a film version of the novel in conjunction with Bradbury. Of the project, Bradbury said, “This is the best birthday gift I could ask for. Today, I have been reborn! Dandelion Wine is my most deeply personal work and brings back memories of sheer joy as well as terror. This is the story of me as a young boy and the magic of an unforgettable summer which still holds a mystical power over me.” [Ray is one of my absolute favourite writers and this is one of my absolute favourite books by him - Jayanta.]

The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath

It’s well known that Sylvia Plath’s only novel, originally published under the pseudonym “Victoria Lucas” in 1963, is based on Plath’s own descent into clinical depression. Like her protagonist, Esther Greenwood, Plath had a magazine internship in college, met with a similar mentor, was rejected from a writing course she desperately wanted to take, and fell into a deep, lingering depression. Unlike Esther, however, Plath was unable to pull herself back into the world, and committed suicide about a month after the book’s UK publication.

Go Tell it on the Mountain, James Baldwin

“Mountain,” Baldwin once said, “is the book I had to write if I was ever going to write anything else.” The book, based in part on the author’s own experiences as a teenage preacher in a small church in Harlem, is a fantastic, tense tale of a 14-year-old boy’s spiritual awakening and moral maturation.

A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway

Hemingway’s semi-autobiographical novel of World War I marked a turn towards the romantic for him — though perhaps everyone gets a little romantic about what they see in their own life. Many of the characters — Catherine Barkley, Helen Ferguson, the priest — are based on real-life people, and of course Henry is based on Hemingway himself and his own doomed romance when he served in the Italian campaigns of the First World War.

Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë

Jane Eyre was originally published in London in 1847 as Jane Eyre: An Autobiography with the pen name “Currer Bell.” Though the autobiographical subtitle was dropped when Brontë dropped the pen name (a sort of obvious correlation there, if you ask us), scholars have found many similarities between the story and Brontë’s own life. Like Jane, Brontë was an orphan sent to live in a terrible boarding school, and it was there her two elder sisters died, rather than just a friend, as in Jane Eyre.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce

Perhaps the most famous semi-autobiographical novel, Joyce’s Bildungsroman follows Stephen Dedalus as he begins to buck the traditions of his Irish Catholic childhood, before finally taking leave of Ireland to pursue his ambitions as an artist. Many editions of the novel have pictures of Joyce on the cover — no need to pretend to model this Dedalus character after anyone else (except of course the mythical character of Daedalus).

Little Women, Louisa May Alcott

Alcott’s novel, which follows the lives and experiences of four sisters, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy March, is based on her own experience growing up with three sisters and set in the same house where it was written, Orchard House inConcord, Massachusetts. Alcott is Jo, of course — who else?

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Hunter S. Thompson

Hunter S. Thompson’s notorious drug-addled novel was based on based on two actual drug-addled trips to Las Vegas that Thompson took (with his attorney Oscar Zeta Acosta, of course) in March and April 1971, while reporting for Rolling Stone and Sports Illustrated. Supposedly, most of what would become his most famous novel was scribbled frantically in his notebook at the tail end of each of these trips. In cases like this, Thompson’s famed adage bears repeating: “I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they’ve always worked for me.” Yes they have. [And Ralph Steadman's drawings are magical! - Jayanta]

10 Famous Literary Characters and Their Real-Life Inspirations

Not my work - got this from here. You really have to go to the link above - the first page of the original post is reproduced here.
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We all know truth is stranger than fiction, and some things (and people) are just too good to have been made up. We’ve already shown you quirky cartoon characters based on real people and though we imagine there are many more life-to-literature adaptations than life-to-cartoon, we’ve decided to continue the trend and pick some of our favorite famous literary characters inspired by real-life people. For the most part, we’ve skipped the autobiographical inspirations, mostly because there are too many to count, though many writers would probably tell you there’s a little bit of themselves in every character they write, so in some ways that distinction is a losing battle. Click through to read out list of ten famous literary characters and their real-life counterparts, and let us know your own picks for your favorite truth-inspired heroes and heroines in the comments!

Tintin — Palle Huld

The 15-year-old Danish writer and actor’s 1928 voyage around the world, documented in his book Around the World in 44 days by Palle reportedly inspired Hergé’s Tintin, himself a young jet-setting fellow. As far as we can tell, Snowy was just a stroke of pure genius invention.

One more review

Entitled "BLOOD DIAMOND", this review appeared in The Statesman, Kolkata, on Oct 2, 2011.

"I first ran into Chander Pahar, the Bibhuti Bhushan Bandyopadhyay original when I was helping my nephew with his Bengali. What struck me immediately was the resemblance to Rider Haggard’s King Solomon’s Mines, a swashbuckling novel that Bandyopadhyay must have been familiar with. However, while Alan Quartermain is a great white hunter ready with his gun, Shankar, the main protagonist of the Mountain of the Moon is no such hero. Shankar is in his twenties, comes from the lower middle classes, and is determined to find at alternate exciting way of life to the one that he knows in rural Bengal. A neighbour finds him a job in Africa so he has the chance to indulge his dreams.

What he discovers is a world ‘red in tooth and claw’ filled with man-eating lions, live volcanoes and haunted by the mysterious, deadly three toed Bunyip and the Dingonek. The translator of Mountain of the Moon, Jayanta Sengupta, points out that apart from King Solomon’s Mines, Bandyopadhyay was probably familiar with J Patterson’s Maneaters of Tsavo. Though I placed the Bunyip in Australia, the Dingonek apparently did exist in African legend and was some kind of fearsome almost dinosaur with horns the head of a crocodile and the body of a hippo.

Shankar’s adventures in Africa are of the thrill a minute kind guaranteed to keep readers young and old compulsively turning the pages. Each chapter leads on to another encounter and people die, but the narrative continues without any false sentiment.

Like the great 19^th century writers, Bandyopadhyay creates a ‘Dark Continent’ a blend of fact and fiction where Portuguese adventurers and lost treasure abounds and danger threatens at every step. Despite this inhospitable environment, Shankar sets out in search of a cave filled with diamonds located in the Mountain of the Moon.

The wonder of it is that Bandyopadhyay had never been to Africa and the story came out of his researches with his own descriptions of the stillness of the night and the hanging stars brought in. That in no way detracts from the fascination of his tale and the confidence with which he tells his story. It’s a very different one from the one he tells in his Apu stories that gave Satyajit Ray the script for Pather Panchali and Aparajito.

Jayanta Sengupta attempts to keep to the flavour of the original time by using phrases like ‘land of the Faerie’. However, early on in the book, he does retain words like ‘bedi’ and ‘pratima’ while describing a small ruined temple near Shankar’s home. These words could, one feels, have been given English equivalents to make the book accessible to non-Indian readers.

The other issue, which comes into the quibbling zone, is the matter of the title, Mountain of the Moon. The Mountains of the Moon with an ‘s’ are supposed to be the source of the White Nile and have been mentioned in ancient treatises. It’s a range familiar through legend to Africa hands and would certainly have been familiar to Bandyopadhyay. The Bengali word for mountain, ‘pahar’ allows for number flexibility. Therefore perhaps, Mountains of the Moon would have been a more satisfying sounding title."

This was written by the well-known novelist, Anjana Basu, author of books like "Curses in Ivory", "Black Tongue", "Rhythms of Darkness" and others. You may want to catch up with her work here. 

Incidentally, if any reader can send me a link or a scan of the review as it appeared in the Statesman, I would be most grateful.

[The book is available at various online stores such as Rupa, Flipkart, Infibeam, Bookadda, Crossword, Linuxbazar (!!), and at Rediff.]

The rivers of Mountain of the Moon

The reader is taken on a short journey down some rivers in Africa - the Congo, the Guai, the Orange, the Wai and a few others. I couldn't find the Guai - it could be a figment of the author's imagination. I found two Wais - one in Maharashtra, India, and the other in Papua New Guinea.

But the others are very well known. The Orange River, otherwise known as the Gariep River, Groote River or Senqu River is the longest river in South Africa. It rises in the Drakensberg mountains in Lesotho, flowing westwards through South Africa to the Atlantic Ocean. The river forms part of the international borders between South Africa and Namibia and between South Africa and Lesotho, as well as several provincial borders within South Africa. Although the river does not pass through any major cities, it plays an important role in the South African economy by providing water for irrigation, as well as hydroelectric power. The river was named by Robert Jacob Gordon after the Dutch Royal House.

The Congo River (also known as the Zaire River) is a river in Africa, and is the deepest river in the world, with measured depths in excess of 230 m (750 ft). It is the second largest river in the world by volume of water discharged, though it has only one-fifth the volume of the world's largest river, the Amazon. Additionally, its overall length of 4,700 km (2,920 mi) makes it the ninth longest river.

Its drainage basin covers 4,014,500 square kilometres (1,550,000 sq mi). The Congo's discharge at its mouth ranges from 23,000 cubic metres per second (810,000 cu ft/s) to 75,000 cubic metres per second (2,600,000 cu ft/s), with an average of 41,000 cubic metres per second (1,400,000 cu ft/s).

The river and its tributaries flow through the Congo rainforest, the second largest rain forest area in the world, second only to the Amazon Rainforest in South America. The river also has the second-largest flow in the world, behind the Amazon; the third-largest drainage basin of any river, behind the Amazon and Río de la Plata rivers; and is one of the deepest rivers in the world, at depths greater than 230 m (750 ft). Because large sections of the river basin lie above and below the equator, its flow is stable, as there is always at least one part of the river experiencing a rainy season. (All these facts are from Wikipedia).

The drainage basin of the Congo River is pretty impressive.

Legendary monsters of Africa

The Bunyip in Chander Pahar gains in mystery since the author never gives a description - he leaves us readers to imagine the size and ferocity of the beast. Africa, as befits the Dark Continent, has many legendary beasts, just as the Himalayas can claim the Yeti, and Pacific Northwest of the USA has its Bigfoot.

There's the Dingonek - Wikipedia describes it as a scaly, scorpion tailed, saber toothed cryptid seen in Africa. Hailing from the Congolese jungles (primarily in the nation formerly known as Zaire), the Dingonek is yet another in a long line of West African cryptids – such as the Chipekwe, the Jago-nini and the Emela-ntouka. At the Brackfontein Ridge in South Africa is a cave painting of an unknown creature that fits the description of the dingonek, right down to its walrus-like tusks. Said to dwell in the rivers and lakes of western Africa, the Dingonek has been described as being approximately 12-feet in length, with a squarish head, a long horn, saber-like canines – which has resulted in its nickname the “Jungle Walrus” – and a tail complete with a bony, dart-like appendage, which is reputed to be able to secrete a deadly poison. This creature is also said to be covered head to toe in a scaly, mottled epidermis, which has been likened to the prehistoric-looking Asian anteater known as the pangolin. The description by John Alfred Jordan, an explorer who actually shot at this unidentified monster in the River Maggori in Kenya in 1907, claimed this scale-covered creature was as big as 18 feet long and had reptilian claws, a spotted back, long tail, and a big head out of which grew large, curved, walrus-like tusks. It is said to be exceedingly territorial and has been known to kill any hippos, crocodiles and even unwary fishermen, who have had the misfortune of wandering too close to their aquatic nests. This may (or may not be) a picture of a Dingonek.

There are numerous reports of a strange, horned creature along the west coast of central Africa. French zoologist Bernard Heuvelmans discusses some of them in his 1959 book On the Track of Unknown Animals under the category of "water elephant" and "forest rhinoceros."

In December, 1919, the London Daily Mail published a letter from C.G. James, who had lived in what is now Zambia. He reported on an enormous beast with a single ivory horn living in the waters of Lakes Bangweulu and the surrounding lakes and swamps. James said this animal was called "Chipekwe" by the natives. The same creature is also mentioned in both Millais' 1924 book Far Away Up the Nile, and Hughes' 1933 volume Eighteen Years on Lake Bangweulu. The latter describes Wa-Ushi tribesmen actually killing such a creature along the Luapula River that leads to Lake Bangweulu. They detailed how its smooth body was armed with a single horn fixed like that of a rhinoceros, but composed of smooth white, highly-polished ivory. Hughes tells of a hippo that was said to be killed by a Chipekwe. The throat was torn out. (Hughes, 1933, p. 146.) Indigenous peoples near Lake Edward in Zaire, call this same creature "Irizima" and refer to it as a "gigantic hippopotamus with the horns of a rhinoceros on its head."

In Mali the Bambara people sculpture iron figurines of a three-horned creature with long points coming off the neck much like the ceratopsian dinosaur Chasmosaurus. (See Ancient Depictions in Room 1 of the Exhibit Hall.) In Cameroon the Baka pygmies identify pictures of a Triceratops with an animal they call the Ngoubou. They report it being big as an ox, possessing a neck frill, and sporting from one to four horns. Apparently the mature male has the largest frill. Perhaps this is the same species as the Emela-ntouka in the Congo and the observers there merely saw the single-horned variety or younger creatures. The Ngoubou is said to inhabit the savannas along the Boumba and Sanga river where it is known to fight with elephants. French cryptozoologist Michel Ballot's 2004 photograph (left) of a native's wood carving representation of Ngoubou bears some resemblance to the picture of the Emela-ntouka from Roy Mackal's 1987 book A Living Dinosaur. This could be the Emela-ntouka.

This, perhaps, could be the Chipekwe.

The Bunyip of Chander Pahar actually originated in Australia! Here's Wikipedia on this beast: The bunyip, or kianpraty, is a large mythical creature from Aboriginal mythology, said to lurk in swamps, billabongs, creeks, riverbeds, and waterholes. The origin of the word bunyip has been traced to the Wemba-Wemba or Wergaia language of Aboriginal people of South-Eastern Australia. However, the bunyip appears to have formed part of traditional Aboriginal beliefs and stories throughout Australia, although its name varied according to tribal nomenclature. In his 2001 book, writer Robert Holden identified at least nine regional variations for the creature known as the bunyip across Aboriginal Australia. Various written accounts of bunyips were made by Europeans in the early and mid-19th century, as settlement spread across the country." This is what the creature could have looked like to an artist who drew this in the 1890s.

The Matabele, the Masai, the Zulu

In his journey with Diego Alvarez, Shankar gets to meet members of a number of African tribes - Matabele, Zulu, Masai.

The Matabele are now known as the Ndebele people. There's an interesting write-up on them here. And this is an interesting picture from R. H. Kiernan, Baden-Powell, 1939.

The Masai are probably among the best known peoples of Africa. Here's what Wikipedia has to say about them. Photographer Osa Johnson and her husband Martin were responsible for introducing much of the world to the exotic wonder of Africa. This is a photograph of her with Masai women, taken in the 1930s.

This picture is a classic - I don't know who the photographer is, but I always dreamed of an African hunter looking for prey in exactly this pose.

Wikipedia tells us a lot about the Zulu people, the Zulu language, and the Zulu kingdom. The most famous king of the Zulu people was King Shaka. The picture below is, I understand, the only known drawing of the king.

The famous folk singer Pete Seeger believed that the well-known song "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" is actually about Shaka. Here's Pete Seeger and The Weavers singing this song at the Carnegie Hall in New York, at their reunion concert.

Mountain of the Moon - now at online stores!

Finally figured that the book is available in stores! My friends told me, not my publisher.

Anyway, it is available, that's the main thing. If you wish to buy online, here you go:

FLIPKART:

INFIBEAM:

BOOKADDA:

CROSSWORD:

Am also in LINUXBAZAR (!):

Not on Landmark yet though!

Mountain of the Moon – Part 11

After Shankar meets Diego Alvarez and sets out to find the diamond mine, the author takes him through some parts of central Africa on their way to the Richtersveldt Mountains.

I have drawn a very rough map covering his journey south towards Rhodesia, South Africa, and finally South-West Africa (I am using the older names of these areas). Quite a walk those two intrepid gentlemen managed to accomplish!

I wish I had written this - 1

No, this is not my work - this one comes from here. But I really really wish I had written this. Thank you Mr Manas Chakravarty, Consulting Editor, Mint, for such a wonderful piece. Read on.

I've been reading the rot people have been talking about West Bengal's name change to Paschimbanga and it's time to set the record straight. There's no such thing as Paschimbanga. Just as there never was any person called Rabindranath Tagore, nor anyone called Mamata Banerjee and it certainly isn't Manas Chakravarty who's writing this column.

Nope, these names are mere masks we Bongs put on when dealing with non-Bongs. The new name is actually Poshchimbongo, rhyming with Congo. The best way for non-Bongs to pronounce it is to pop a rossogolla into their mouths. The name of the bhodrolok who won the Nobel for literature is Robindronath Thakur, often called simply Robi Thakur. Poshchimbongo's chief minister is Mawmota, while yours truly in real life - and here I'm laying bare my soul - is Manosh Chawkroborty.

The problem is the Bengali language lacks one of the most basic sounds, that of the short 'a'. So words like 'curd', 'murder', 'hurt' are impossible to pronounce.

Curd becomes 'card' and Ashok becomes Awshok. If we want to say, 'He's a man', we say 'He's ay man'. The hip-hop phrase, 'He's da man' for a real cool guy was undoubtedly coined by a Bong. We also lack the letters 'v', 'w' and 'y', often say 'sh' instead of 's', while getting our tongues around 'z' is an ordeal. The results  have spawned many Bong jokes, my favourite being: 'What do you call a Bengali wedding? A bedding'. In fact, we changed the name West Bengal simply because we couldn't pronounce West, instead calling it Oashte Bengal. These limitations have shaped Bong temperament, our culture and our entire outlook on life.

For example, the reason why the political right hasn't done well in Poshchimbongo is because we have enormous trouble pronouncing the Sangh parivar.  It's tortured out of recognition to become the Shongho poribar. Just think what happens to swayamsevak with the 's' becoming 'sh', the 'w' non-existent, the 'a' becoming an 'o' and the 'v' transformed into a 'b'. Who in his right mind would ever listen to a shoiongshebok? I remember Mamata rushing to Atal Bihari Vajpayee on one occasion, shouting "Awtol-jee", "Awtol-jee", while Vajpayee looked hither and thither trying to find out who on earth "Awtol" was.

Our history too has been shaped by language. While we had no problems with Gandhi, both Mohandas and Karamchand were a challenge. Jawaharlal was a real tongue-twister, becoming Jawoahawrlal, and Bengal turned to communism in despair. Another reason why Bengal is different from the national mainstream is our inability to sing 'Jana Gana Mana'- we sing 'Jawno Gawno Mawno' instead. But Sonia and Rahul are fine, although Manmohan is dicey.

We all know the Bong who works is a work of fiction. You see, 'work' becomes 'oaark' in Bong. Obviously 'oaark' is not the same thing as 'work'. But we are certainly not lazy, only lajee.

Bengali does, however, have one thing in common with English - inanimate objects have no gender. So a Bong has no idea whether a bus is male or female and consequently hasn't a clue whether, in Hindi, 'bus chal raha hai' or 'chal rahi hai'. The upshot is that while we may mangle the English language, when it comes to Hindi we hack it into little pieces and fry it in boiling oil. That is why one of my dreams is to hear Pronob-da make the Budget speech in Hindi.

And phor all those non-Bongs who oaant to make phaan of aas, I oarn them: Beoare, oaat Poshchimbongo shays today, India uill shay tomorrow.

Mountain of the Moon - Part 10

One the scariest moments in Shankar's days in the grasslands of East Africa was his night-time encounter with the black mamba.

According to Wikipedia, its name is derived from the black colouration inside the mouth rather than the actual colour of the skin which varies from dull yellowish-green to a gun-metal grey. It is the fastest snake in the world, capable of moving at 4.32 to 5.4 metres per second (16–20 km/h, 10–12 mph).

This is a really really dangerous creature. How danger can be appreciated when you read this post by Wade Nolan.

"On a recent safari to Africa, I hand-caught a wild nine-foot Black Mamba. It was a calculated risk...involving bad calculation.

The Mamba's head is coffin-shaped and the inside of his mouth is an ominous black...he would raise up to near eye level, look aggressively at us then loose his balance... and tip over...only to raise up again..hissing. I thought that maybe he had gotten hold of a bad mouse and was woozy.

I made a hasty and misguided decision to lay hands on the most poisonous snake in the world. Most mamba bites are fatal.  This aggressive cobra has a nasty habit of biting it's victims 4 and 5 times in the face and neck.

The third time he raised up and tipped, I pinned his head, and without a lot of thinking...(I bet that surprises you), I had a very angry Black Mamba in my hand.

From the roof of his gaping open mouth I could see the curved extended fangs. Dripping from those fangs was the deadliest venom in the reptile kingdom... mamba venom is yellow. The slippery venom ran out of the corner of his mouth and into my hand..."

There's a pretty hairy video of this episode here.

And here's a vid of a black mamba hunting a mouse. A friend said that this is the first time she felt sympathy for a mouse.

Mountain of the Moon - Part 9

While reading 'Chander Pahar', I was as fascinated by East Africa as Bibhutibhushan and Shankar. I started reading about explorers of Africa, thanks to the excellent collection at the British Council Library in Kolkata during my school and college days. Their names - James Bruce (here's a picture of him), René-Auguste Caillié, Samuel Baker, Sir Richard Burton (no, not the actor), Speke, David Livingstone, Henry Stanley, Paul du Chaillu, and many others - were magical to me as a child, and still more magical to me as an adult, now that I have some kind of appreciation of their efforts, trials, and achievements.

As a tiny tribute, I have put together a gallery of these gallant men:

There are two short but fine articles here and here. You might enjoy them. I have always imagined Diego Alvarez to be one such intrepid traveler, always drawn to the unknown and the dangerous, as were these men.

Mountain of the Moon - more reviews and listings

This one from Afternoon, and this one from Deccan Herald - you'll have to scroll down a bit

 

 

 

Mountain of the Moon - some listings & reviews; Part 2

http://www.flipkart.com/books/8129118246

http://www.deccanchronicle.com/channels/lifestyle/books/mountain-moon-call-wild-706

http://www.7sisters.in/the_mountain_of_the_moon.html

http://www.dnaindia.com/lifestyle/review_book-review-mountain-of-the-moon-chander-pahar-_1577223

Mountain of the Moon - some reviews and listings 1

Mountain of the Moon - Part 8

The man-eating lions

In "Mountain of the Moon", the workers building the railway are bedevilled by a pair of man-eating lions. There is an uncanny resemblance of this part of the story with the true story of the man-eaters of Tsavo. The two lions who caused so much depredation have been immortalised by Lt-Col. J H Patterson in his classic book published in 1917 - check this out.

Wikipedia has this to say about Patterson and the Tsavo lions: "In 1898, then Lt.-Col. Patterson was commissioned by the British East Africa Company to oversee the construction of a railway bridge over the Tsavo river in present-day Kenya. He arrived at the site in March of that year...Almost immediately after his arrival, lion attacks began to take place on the worker population, with the lions dragging men out of their tents at night and feeding on their victims. Despite the building of thorn barriers (bomas) around the camps, bonfires at night and strict after-dark curfews, the attacks escalated dramatically, to the point where the bridge construction eventually ceased due to a fearful, mass departure of the work force. Along with the obvious financial consequences of the work stoppage, Patterson also faced the challenge of maintaining his authority and even his personal safety at this remote site against the increasingly hostile and superstitious workers, many of whom were convinced that the lions were in fact evil spirits, come to punish those who worked at Tsavo, and that he was the cause of the misfortune because the attacks had coincided with his arrival....

"With his reputation, livelihood and safety at stake, Patterson, an experienced tiger hunter from his military service in India, undertook an extensive effort to deal with the crisis and after months of attempts and near misses, he finally killed the first lion on the night of 9 December 1898, and killed the second one on the morning of December 29 (narrowly escaping death in the process). The lions were maneless like many others in the Tsavo area and both were exceptionally large. Each lion was over nine feet long from nose to tip of tail and required eight men to carry it back to the camp."

The lions are now on permanent display at Field Museum in Chicago, Illinois, USA.

A movie, "The Ghost and the Darkness", has been made based on this story.

Mountain of the Moon - Part 7

The Uganda Railways 

Found some great pictures of the Uganda Railways from the early part of the 20th century (Source - http://www.sikh-heritage.co.uk/heritage/sikhhert%20EAfrica/sikhsEAfrica.htm).





(Source - Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA, Carpenter Collection)
There's this GREAT poster for the Railways from Wikimedia Commons.

Mountain of the Moon - Part 6

Some pictures of Calcutta of the early 1900s - fascinating stuff! This is the city in which Shankar, the hero of "Chander Pahar" lived and studied. He goes to college in Calcutta; the author doesn't mention which. I dug out some old pictures of Calcutta of the early 1900s, which may be of interest. This one is from http://www.flickr.com/photos/39476299@N02/5307501414/ - titled "European Quarter Calcutta 1900's".

Here's another one - "Calcutta India Great Eastern Hotel 1900's Postcard":

Here's one titled "Presidency College, Calcutta, c 1925"

I am sure some of my friends can add to this wonderful collection of photos of Calcutta of a century ago.

Mountain of the Moon - Part 5

A friend has sent this wonderful set interesting stuff on Chander Pahar.

There is this wonderful link: http://gauravdas.podbean.com/2009/11/05/episode-12-chander-pahar-16/

Some of the text in the page runs as follows; I just can't wait to explore those links!

"Bibhutibhusan Bandopadhaya's adventure classic- CHANDER PAHAR or 'Mountain of the Moon'.
First episode of a total of six episodes. It is early 1900s. Shankar, a not so ordinary Bengali lad seeks a life extraordinary: He journeys to then British East Africa, to work for Uganda Railways. This is the story of his adventures in Africa. 

Episode artwork is by Gautam Karan. More pictures by Gautam'da at we-and-our-world.blogspot.com/ 

Follow Shankar on his adventures:

Interesting insights into and factoids about people and places in CHANDER PAHAR;  http://banglagolpopodcast.blogspot.com/" 

 

Mountain of the Moon - Part 4

The author, Bibhutibhushan, the master that he was, did a fantastic job of creating a world that he had never seen! He lived for a long time in the small town of Ghatshila, in Jharkhand, and to my knowledge (incomplete though that is), he had never gone to Africa. But so vivid was his writing that I knew what a baobab tree would look like, decades before I actually saw one.



Wikipedia says that the other common names include (among others) "upside-down tree, and monkey bread tree". After seeing this picture, I think I know why.

Mountain of the Moon - Part 3

The blurb on the back cover of my book.

Mountain of the Moon - Part 2

The front cover of my book

Mountain of the Moon - part 1

This is a shameless attempt at self-promotion. And the first of many. You have been warned.

I have written another book - this time it is a translation "Chander Pahar", the classic Bengali adventure tale, written by Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay. And, I have started a new blog for this - http://mountain-of-the-moon.blogspot.com/

So, from time to time, I am going to promote this from this blog. Starting now.

My book is a labour of love - I first read the book when I was five years old, and finally at the age of 58, I decided to translate this into English.

The new blog is dedicated to my translation: it has been accepted by a major publisher, and should be hitting the stands soon, hopefully very soon.

Called "Chander Pahar" in the original Bengali, this book is one of the perennial favourites of any Bengali. Chronicling the adventures of a young Bengali man in the forests of Africa. It is considered to be one of the most important adventure novels written in the Bengali language. It is written by one of the greatest writers in the language - Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay, who also wrote Pather Panchali, immortalised in film by Satyajit Ray.

When I was five, a little girl, my classmate at school, gave me a copy of the book. Two years ago, when I went searching for a more recent copy, what I found was the very same edition, no changes at all. The cover illustration and the drawings in the book had been done by Satyajit Ray. Here's the cover:

Tiger Tales - part 6

Contrary to the opinion of my dearly beloved wife, I can now prove that at least two people read my blogs.

One is my friend, Ashok Gulati, who sent one of the tiger tales to his friend, Ronnie Patel, who in turn has contributed the following tale. This was, doubtless, at some ancient time, set to music, and one can imagine the camp fire burning late at night somewhere in the wilds of the Dooars jungle, the cook preparing dinner, the Old Monk flowing freely, and some artistically inclined young shikari entertaining his comrades to this ditty:
Through the jongole I am went
On shooting Tiger I am bent
Boshtaard Tiger has eaten wife;
No doubt I will avenge poor darling's life

Too much quiet, snakes and leeches
But I not fear these sons of beeches
Hearing loud noise I am jumping with start
But noise is coming from my damn fool heart;

Taking care not to be fright
I am clutching rifle tight with eye to sight
Should Tiger come I will shoot and fall him down
Then like hero return to native town;

Then through trees I am espying one cave
I am telling self - 'Bannerjee be brave'
I am now proceeding with too much care,
From far I smell this Tiger's lair,

My leg shaking, sweat coming, I start pray
I think I will shoot Tiger some other day;
Turning round I am going to flee,
But Tiger giving bloody roar spotting Bengalee,

He bounding from cave like footballer Pele ,
I run shouting 'Kali Ma tumi kothay gele';
Through the jongole I am running
With Tiger on my tail closer coming,

I am a telling that never in life
I will risk again for my damn wife!!!!

Tiger my prayer hearing, slowly slowing,
His leaps and growls now stopped following,
He's left, turning other way -- I can tell,
I think, he did not like my wife as well.

Mr Patel is the author of the last four lines to this timeless lament for a lost wife who got inextricably mingled with the digestive juices of a tiger, but did not prove too succulent or tasty for the tiger. Perhaps mixed with ginger, onions, garam masala, and cooked in mustard oil over a slow fire......

Tiger Tales - Part 5

I am really glad to say that some of my friends have found these tiger tales informative, inspiring and educational. They have informed me that they now look at the tiger with a lot more affection than they used to. A handful, after a few pulls at mugs of Old Monk, have indeed promised to keep a tiger as a pet. I have advised them to go easy on the Old Monk - that ambrosial nectar can do strange things to a person's imagination, particularly to those who are newly converted to this concoction of the Gods.

However, for the hardier specimens among my friends, I am relating this lesson on how to acquire his or her own pet tiger. My lifelong study of the human species has taught me that the female will be far more successful in acquiring and managing such a pet. It is my advice that the males of the human species should stick to their Old Monks, while the females go out to the nearest tiger habitat and set about capturing a live tiger for the joy and edification of their households.

I learnt this lesson from my friend's uncle - not the uncles featured in my previous posts, but from another such intrepid avuncular soul. You don't need a gun for this; what you need is a large basketful of lemons. I could do worse than relate the tale in full.

My friend's uncle was a renowned hunter who had turned to wildlife conservation, much like his hero, Jim Corbett. And like Corbett, he knew no better enjoyment than capturing tigers and other wildlife on film. Due to his decades of study of tigerlife, he was always the first port of call of all the zoos in the world which wanted to capture a tiger. Also, in case there was a particularly malcontent tiger attacking village cattle and goats, the Forest Department immediately sent for the uncle to help capture the offender and remove him or her to some other area.

Some years ago, in the early spring, he got such a call from Tamil Nadu. A notorious cattle-lifter was making life miserable for the villages around the Mudumalai area. So, could the gentleman please present himself and help capture this fellow? Within a week, the uncle had presented himself at the village which was the epicentre of such depredations.

After a few hours of conversation with the villagers and the Forest Department staff, and also wandering about in the forest, he made up his mind. He would set up a machan some three kilometres from the village, and spend the night there. He wanted a fat male goat, and one large basket of lemons to be given to him. No guns; and no forest department staff to protect him - he was well able to protect himself, thank you.

At sundown, the uncle crept silently up into the machan and made himself comfortable for what promised to be an exciting all-night vigil. The goat had been tied up under a simul tree just opposite the machan; the basket of lemons, ripe, large and juicy, was at hand. His powerful torch was kept close by, as was a coil of long sturdy rope. So was the hipflask of Old Monk, without which this gentleman never went into the forest.

Late at night, there was the slightest sound of careful footsteps on dry grass. The uncle very carefully lifted the torch and switched it on. There, about to leap on to the goat, was the tiger, crouched in a Jackie Chan pose. The tiger froze in the light, and turned towards the uncle with a snarl. "Take this", said the uncle, and threw a lemon into his mouth. The tiger crunched it up and snarled again. The uncle threw another couple of lemons into the tiger's gaping maw. The tiger crunched these up as well and sneezed and jumped into the undergrowth and scampered away.

"You will come back, my friend! no escape for you tonight." The uncle smiled to himself.

A couple of hours later, another slight sound, this time from just below the machan. The uncle was ready. He sat up, switched on the torch to light up the bushes under the machan, and there was this big fellow sitting under the machan, with its mouth open. The uncle quickly dropped a large handful of lemons into the mouth. The tiger again crunched them up, and sneezed again and ran away.

Next morning, just after sunrise, the villagers were astonished to see the goat running pell-mell into the village, bleating at the top of his voice. A few hundred yards behind came the uncle leading a large fat male tiger at the end of a leash.The tiger looked distinctly unhappy, and tried to bite into the rope, but as hard as he tried, he just couldn't do it.

The uncle sauntered into the village, tied up the leash around a large peepul tree, and demanded a large mug of hot tea. While this was being prepared, the villagers thronged around him. How did the sahib manage to catch such a large animal, and come through so obviously unscathed, indeed so completely unscratched? What was the secret of his success?

After consuming two mugs of sweet tea and almost a whole packet of thin arrowroot biscuits, dutifully dunked into the tea, the uncle spoke. "It was very simple. Every hour or so, the tiger would come to attack me or the goat, and every time, I would feed him some lemons. The whole basket was gone by the morning, so I came down from the machan, took the rope, tied one end round the tiger's neck and dragged it to the village."

"But, why didn't it bite you?" A hundred voices asked him this question.

"Bite? How can it bite? After eating about a hundred lemons? Arre baba, all those lemons have caused acid burn on his lips and mouth. Also you know that lemon juice is good for clearing the bowels. After eating a hundred lemons, the fellow has the runs. He is not thinking of biting or scratching or running away. Someone quickly make a lot of thair sadam - the poor fellow will be all right soon."

Found: the lost spine of India's PM!!!

Many commentators and well-wishers of our beloved and much esteemed prime minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, have spent sleepless nights grappling with the question "where is his spine?" Much has been written on this vexed loss of what is normally considered an essential part of the anatomy of a member of the human species. Some examples will be found here, here and here.

I am glad to announce to the world that after many months of search, and weeks of painstaking archaeological investigation, his spinal cord has finally been found.

The location is a state secret, and while I may or may not be bound by the Official Secrets Act, I am not taking any chances.

Here's the proof:



If there are any doubts about whether this is genuine stuff, belonging indeed to our PM, take a closer look: