Review of Chander Pahar

A novel, we all Indian can be proud of, published in 1937 written by Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay is "Chander Pahar"or "Mountain of the Moon". A Bengali adventure novel where one of the main character is Shankar, a brave youth who worked in a jute mill due to his family's financial struggle. But he loved Geography. He wants to discover the world. It's a story about an expensive dream of a common young man. 

I read this book 10 years ago. It was my elder brother who gave me this book. I am still grateful to him to suggesting this book to read as I had gobbled it up within two days. I don't know you have read this book or not, but I can assure you that, if you haven't read this book yet then you are missing something great.

So as the story starts in a small village of Bengal, where Shankar lived. After a lot of struggle he got a job in Uganda. It was a pre-World War season. After reaching Uganda, he faced a lot of problems which were life threatening. In that time he showed the world his bravery and never giving up attitude. He became a station master of almost abandoned railway station where he narrowly escaped a deadly black mamba and a big African lion. In this situation, any average man would return home or die in fear. But bold Shankar stood out against the death. One day he met Alvarez in a pathetic situation. He served and healed him. In the return of his life Alvarez was ready to give the address of the greatest mine of Africa, a diamond mine. 

But this mine was always secure. No one has returned who went for this treasure. Alvarez was almost died. He lost his adventure partner named Jim karter. But greed is very dangerous. It makes people blind. So from here, the journey of Shankar has started.

They went through the worst places of nature, stayed in the jungle, climbed hills, walked through the kalahari desert, survived volcano, death, hunt and many more in this famous adventure. And you will eager to know how Shankar survived the death. This is not only the adventure story of Shankar. It is an representation of bravery of Bengali. An young man who won the fight of survival in the toughest situation of his life on the land of foreign. 

The most interesting fact about this novel is on that time there is no facility of internet or any kind of digital map, but still author Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay had described almost perfect scenery of this place only by reading some famous travel blogs.

  
It has rating of 4.6/5 by Goodreads. So you can imagine, how amazing this book is. Though now a days many bengali don't know about this novel or the real dignity of this book. But this book will always stay as a treasure in the heart of the every Bengali literature lover.

Thank you for reading this. I hope you will also read this novel for sure no matter if you read it or not. If you do it, this writing will get a proper success.  


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