Colonial Essentialisation and Postcolonial Negotiation: A Critique of Satyajit Ray's "Shonkur Congo Abhijaan"

The article is concerned with the ways in which Satyajit Ray represents Congo, Africa, in one of his young-adult short stories featuring the famous fictional Bengali bhadralok scientist-inventor Professor Shonku. It argues that Ray's portrayal follows the ways in which the continent and its people have been essentialised in colonial representations. The genealogy of this reductivism of Ray can be traced back to a Bengali bhadralok fascination for the Global South, and to an erudite race-consciousness that emerged in colonial Bengal. The article also focuses on Shonku's attempt at dissociating himself from mercantile colonial enterprises thereby locating a peculiar postcolonial negotiation within the fabric of Ray's text.