Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay

Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay শীর্ষেন্দু মুখোপাধ্যায়
Born	(1935-11-02) 2 November 1935 Mymensingh Bengal Presidency, East Bengal, British India (present Bangladesh)
Nationality	Indian
Education	MA in Bengali
Alma mater	Calcutta University
Occupation	author
Awards	Ananda Purashkar
Signature

Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay (Bengali: শীর্ষেন্দু মুখোপাধ্যায়; born 2 November 1935) is a famous Bengali author from India. He has written stories for both adults and children.^[1] He is known for creating the relatively new fictional sleuths Fatik and Shabor Dasgupta.^[2]

Life

Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay was born in Mymensingh^[3] (now in Bangladesh) on 2 November 1935 and lived there up to age ten. During partition his family migrated to Kolkata.^[4] He spent his childhood in Bihar and many places in Bengal and Assam accompanying his father, who worked in the railways. He passed intermediate from the Victoria College, Koch Bihar before taking a Masters in Bengali from Calcutta University.

Mukhopadhyay started his career as a school teacher and is now on the staff of Anandabazar Patrika at Kolkata. He is associated with the Bengali magazine Desh.^[5]

Spiritually, Mukhopadhyay is heavily influenced by the Hindu sub-sect of Thakur Anukulchandra. Many of his books are dedicated with a salutation 'Ra-Swa'. Ra-Swa stands for Radha Swami (this is a standard salutation for followers of Anukul-Thakur).

Comics from his stories

A comics based on his book Bipinbabur Bipad was released. With artwork by Swapn Debnath, the 48-page comic was published in monthly issues of Anandamela (September 2006 to December 2006). Another story Nababganjer Agantuk, is now in the process of becoming an action comics by Visual Literature Entertainment, a group of new generation comics creators. Four more comics based on his novellas have been brought out by Parul Prakashani: Patalghar, Bidhu Daroga, Pagla Saheber Kabor and Patashgarer Jangale. They are created by Sujog Bandyopadhyaya. His popular children's novel, Gosainbaganer Bhoot, was done into a graphic novel, The Ghost of Gosainbagan. The script was done by journalist, Jhimli Mukherjee Pandey. It was published by Starmark.

Thrillers

Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay has also penned thrillers like Kalo Beral, Shada Beral, and even started a series with detective Shabor Dasgupta in the lead. Shabr Dasgupta is a Detective of Lalbazar. He is a tough cop, with little emotion, heavy mental strength and Great Sense of Humor. But the series was not successful at beginning, so he discontinued writing it. But later this series got positive reviews and some movies also released which is based on his detective fictions grabbing positive reviews.

Movies

His novels were later adopted in movies.

• PatalGhor was adapted into a movie Patalghar by Abhijit Choudhury in 2003.
• His short story "Dosar" was filmed by Rituparno Ghosh in B/W format
• Kagojer Bou was also adapted into a 2011 film by director Bappaditya Bandopadhyay.
• Nabiganjer Daitto was adapted into a movie Ajab Gayer Ajab Katha by Tapan Sinha.
• Hirer Angti was adapted into a movie Hirer Angti by Rituporno Ghosh.
• Sadhubabar Lathi was adapted into a movie Sadhu Babar Lathi.
• In 2010, a film has been released named Banshiwala, the script of which is adopted from the novel 'Banshiwala', written by him. 'Banshiwala' was also published in Desh Patrika.
• Gosainbaganer Bhoot, published in "Pujabarshiki Anandamela" adapted into a movie, Gosainbaganer Bhoot in 2011.
• Chayamoy, published in "Pujabarshiki Anandamela" has been adapted into a movie by director Haranath Chakraborty and is scheduled to release in 2013. It stars Sabyasachi Chakrabarty (in the title role), Dipankar De and Gaurav Chakrabarty.
• Goynar Baksho has been adapted into a movie by director Aparna Sen in 2013.
• Ashchorjyo Prodeep has been adapted into a movie by director Anik Dutta in 2013.
• Wrin has been adapted into a movie named Ebar Shabor by director Arindam Sil in 2015.
• Eagoler Chokh has been adapted into a movie by director Arindam Sil in 2016.
• Aschhe Abar Shabor is an upcoming 2018 film and third installment of Goenda Shabor film series, is based on his story Prajapatir Mrityu O Punarjanmo.
• Manojder Adbhut Bari is an upcoming 2018 film of Anindya Chatterjee is based on the novel in the same name.

Works

"Jol torongo" was his first story published in the magazine "Desh" in 1959. After 7/8 years of writing story "Ghunpoka" was his first novel published in the annual Puja edition of the magazine Desh. His first children's novel was called Manojder Adbhut Baari.

Awards

• Vidyasagar Award (1985) - for his contributions to children's literature
• Ananda Purashkar (1973 and 1990)
• Sahitya Akademi award (1988) for his novel Manabjamin.
• Banga Bibhushan award (2012)

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay.