Bengali novelist Mani Shankar Mukhopadhyay, known to millions by his pen name Sankar whose works transformed the mundane realities of a fast changing urban life into timeless narratives and were adapted into films by Satyajit Ray, died in Kolkata on Friday. He was 92.
The Sahitya Akademi award-winning writer, best known for his iconic novel Chowringhee, died of age-related ailments at a private hospital. Sankar is survived by two daughters.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed condolences on the novelist’s demise and called him a “towering figure in Bengali literature”. “Deeply saddened by the passing of Shri Mani Shankar Mukhopadhyay Ji, fondly known as Shankar. He was a towering figure in Bengali literature whose words portrayed the lives of people with sensitivity and insight. My heartfelt condolences to his family, friends and countless admirers,” the PM said in an X post.
Chief minister Mamata Banerjee and senior Bharatiya Janata Party leaders mourned the death, saying Sankar left a void that could never be filled.
“Bengal’s cultural world has suffered an irreparable loss,” Banerjee wrote on X.
Born on December 7, 1933, in what is now Bangladesh’s Jessore district, Sankar grew up in Howrah after his family moved to Kolkata before World War II. The son of a lawyer, his early life was shaped by modest means and a restless curiosity about the human condition, traits that would later define his fiction.
{{/usCountry}}Born on December 7, 1933, in what is now Bangladesh’s Jessore district, Sankar grew up in Howrah after his family moved to Kolkata before World War II. The son of a lawyer, his early life was shaped by modest means and a restless curiosity about the human condition, traits that would later define his fiction.
{{/usCountry}}Before becoming a full-time writer, he worked as a clerk to Noel Barwell, the last English barrister practising at the Calcutta High Court. Barwell’s death left a deep imprint on the young Sankar.
He penned around a hundred stories and novels, of which Simabadhya and Jana Aranya were made into landmark movies by Ray in 1971 and 1975 respectively as part of the auteur’s Calcutta Trilogy series which focused on the struggles, compromises and rat race in urban life.
Sankar worked as an executive for a Kolkata-based company for more than 40 years. The metropolis became a canvas for Shankar’s novels, of which several were translated into other languages.
Director Pinaki Bhusan Mukherjee’s Chowringhee (1968), featuring Uttam Kumar as the protagonist Sata Bose, a hotel executive, became a landmark movie because of the lifelike characters Sankar depicted.
Ritwik Ghatak started shooting a movie based on Sankar’s first novel, Kato Ajanare, in 1959 but could not complete the project. The story is a vivid reflection of a young Sankar’s experience of working as a barrister’s clerk.
Director Basu Chatterjee adopted Sankar’s novel Maan Samman and made Sheesha (1986) which focused on an allegation of sexual harassment faced by a corporate executive played by Mithun Chakraborty.
A research-based book on Swami Vivekananda was Sankar’s last big project in 2022 and remains his last non-fictional work. He earlier wrote five books on the monk.
The writer was honoured with several awards, including the Sahitya Akademi Award in 2021.
“Sankar lost his father when he was a teenager and had to face an immense struggle to survive. While working as a clerk for Noel Frederick Barwell, the last British barrister at the Calcutta high court, he got himself admitted at Kolkata’s Ripon College for a degree. He had to work as a hawker on the streets and do various odd jobs to make ends meet,” said author and educationist Pabitra Sarkar.
Veteran thespian Rudraprasad Sengupta said, “Mani Shankar is dead. Long live Mani Shankar.”
In a post on X, Union minister of state for education and former state BJP president Sukanta Majumdar said: “The literary treasures will be part of our cultural heritage forever.”
Sankar’s works touched every aspect of urban life, and were wildly popular among readers.
A septuagenarian homemaker from Kolkata, Gauri Roy, recounted how quickly Sankar’s novels landed on bookshelves.
“In the 60s and 70s, the most common and popular gifts at Bengali marriages used to be either the works of Rabindranath Tagore or legendary writers such as Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay and Bibhuti Bhusan Bandopadhyay. Sankar made his place in this list,” Roy said.
“I remember receiving at least 10 copies of Chowringhee when I got married in 1965, only three years after the novel was published.”