Draft:Hangorer Kanna

• Comment: Scribd, blogspot, and research gate are generally considered unreliable sources. See WP:RS Sulfurboy (talk) 21:09, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

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Hangorer Kanna (Short Story Collection)

Hangorer Kanna. ( Bengali: হাঙ্গরের কান্না; lit 'Tears of the Shark') is a collection of Bengali Science Fiction (Kalpabigyan) short stories authored by Adrish Bardhan,, a Science Fiction practitioner belonging to the Bengali tradition of writers. This collection was primarily serialized in the Bengali Science Fiction Magazine Ascharya, (আশ্চর্যে, which ran from 1963 to 1968/1972) and later Fantastic,(ফ্যান্টাস্টিক, published between 1975 and 2007). It was compiled into book form and published as a standalone collection later by Alfa-Beta Publishers.

Contents

Story Title (Bengali)	Transliteration	English Translation
হাঙ্গরের কান্না	Hangorer Kanna	The Shark's cry
ইলেকট্রিক জীবাণু	Electric Jibanu	The Electric Germ
পাথর	Pathor	The Stone
উল্কা	Ulka	The Shooting Star
যে মেশিন ভাবতে পারে	Je Machine Bhabte Pare	The Machine That Can Think
প্রলয় এনেছিল পাড়ার ধূমকেতু	Proloy Enechilo Parar Dhumketu	The Destruction Brought By The Neighborhood Comet
নক্ষত্র	Nakhotro	The Star

Synopses of Stories

Hangorer Kanna

Sujit, the narrator and an inhabitant of Calcutta, arrives at a scenic forest settlement to meet his sister and Jamai Babu, who is a forest range officer. Jamai Babu is a keen reader of books who takes special interest in genetic engineering, often speaking of Cynodictis, a breed formed through hybridization of domestic dogs and wild wolves. He informs Sujit that the forest is filled with wolves, the packs of which are kept at bay by the means of tranquilizers and radio signals. He recalls an incident wherein he had to capture a wild wolf bereft of a clan and render him senseless with a tranquilizer bullet, after which he put a radio collar on him to track his location.

One morning Sujit and Jamai Babu go out for an expedition in the search of the wolf Jamai Babu had apprehended before and they chance upon a pond. Sujit notices that the surrounding area is strangely soundless and absolutely empty. A noise in Jamai Babu's radio receptor notifies them that the wolf is nearby. Moving along the edge of the pond, they discover a walking path amidst the grassy land, leading straight into the deep forest and they come across a great ruin. Suddenly, a shrieking cry of wolves pervades the silence of the forest and the land beneath their feet slides away.

Sujit wakes up to a bright yellow light and realizes that he is bound to a table with a belt. Upon retaining his vision, he notices that Jamai Babu is held captive in a cage. Sujit sees an old man with yellow eyes and a seemingly mad face, laughing. The old man starts speaking in Bengali and reveals that he has spent years in this jungle. Sujit notices that the old man keeps talking to someone who he refers to as "khoka". Sujit notices a huge aquarium wherein strange creatures are swimming around.

The old man reveals that he is a scientist who has been developing the discipline of recombinant genes and his 'babies' have actually taken birth in the wombs of sharks. His 'babies' act as security and gatekeeper of his laboratory. When Jamai Babu enquires regarding the process of communication employed by the creatures, the old man responds by saying that they employ telepathy, barring interception from third parties. He claims to have moved beyond the concept of test tube babies and is breeding humans in the wombs of crocodiles, sharks and gayal. He reveals that his current area of interest lies in inter-breeding humans with wolves, monkeys and guinea pigs.

In order to distract the scientist, Jamai Babu says that he wants to meet "Khoka", but the scientist reveals that he has knowledge of their scheme to escape. He calls out to "Tuntuni", a gorilla who is adept at playing every role necessary to complement the old man's experimental labor, since she has a dolphin brain. The scientist hands the keys of Jamai Babu's cage to the gorilla and instructs her to take a good look at her to-be-husband. While "Tuntuni" walks towards the cage, Jamai Babu draws a concealed revolver from his boot and shoots the gorilla. He skillfully shoots the old man with a swift bullet and rescues Sujit. Both of them venture towards the aquarium and encounter the sight of a Crocodile-faced-human, a Gayal-faced-human and a Shark-faced-human swimming around. They discover a cage full of seven senseless wolves and decide to leave the mad scientist in the cage.

Electric Jibanu

Dinanath, the narrator, and Professor Natboltu Chakra arrive in Darjeeling with the intention of investigating cases of mysterious electrical phenomena that locals have termed as "electric terrors". Upon encountering one such case immediately after their arrival, they are assisted by Captain Kaka who shows them to Sungold Hotel. He is a strange man with a disfigured face and peculiar eyes who claims to have been a former military doctor. He reveals that he secretly summoned the Professor to Darjeeling.

The next day, Captain Kaka tells them that a silver cylinder-shaped unidentified flying object has been recently discovered due to its crashing in the Pobing tea estate. From his experience in the military, he draws parallels between the local crash with the Great Siberian Explosion in 1908 and a 1978 UFO crash in Bolivia resulting in the dispersal of 10.5 million cubic feet of granite. He argues time and again, despite initial skepticism from the Professor, that these incidents cannot be reduced to mere meteor strikes. In fact, they are incidents of alien spacecraft crashing. According to him, these spacecraft carry microscopic bio-electric germs that have failed to disperse in the previous crashes but have succeeded in Darjeeling and led to the unleashing of extraterrestrial organisms into the local environment.

During a subsequent meeting, Captain Kaka further elaborates the nature of contagion and how these organisms infect the human body. Victims display extreme fever that cannot be measured by traditional thermometers but only by electrometers. Their body's bio-electricity is raised to deadly concentrations and they emit severe electrical shocks upon physical contact. This infection affects males and female hosts differently, causing neurological strain in the latter and speedy recovery in the former. Based on these clues and Captain Kaka's symptoms, the Professor deduces that Captain Kaka himself is a host and is connected to foreign entities through telepathy. Upon confrontation by the Professor, Captain Kaka confesses that he became exposed to the electric germ during the Bolivia crash.

Captain Kaka explains the underlying agenda of the aliens to merge with human brains in an attempt to create superhumans. However, human physiology is not yet suitable for this experiment as a result of which the host body is bursting into flames, causing unexplained explosions. The Professor realizes that Captain Kaka is nearing his end and losing control due to bio-electrical overload. He swiftly grabs Dinanath and flees the room before Captain Kaka's body detonates and destroys a section of the Sungold Hotel.

Pathor

Dinanath, the narrator, is compelled to write a story about Devil, the family dog, which was published in the Pakhiraj magazine. After having left Shiuri post that incident, he receives a cryptic telegram from his nephew regarding a strange occurrence involving the dog. The narrator already believes that Devil houses an extra-terrestrial intelligence since he was telepathically compelled by the dog to write a story about him. Dinanath suspects that no one would believe the strange story except for one person, Professor Natboltu Chakra. After arriving in Shiuri, Dinanath learns that a glowing red celestial object has descended onto the town's police grounds, creating a massive ditch and emitting high levels of heat and electricity. It has then embedded itself in the earth as a black stone with several holes. His nephew suspects that this object is not an ordinary meteor since meteors only descend upon Earth within a specified direction and time frame. He also notes that Devil has been found extremely disturbed and showcasing strange behavior since this incident occurred.

Devil is actively avoiding visiting the crash site and is terrified of it. The nephew did not believe that dogs have a special sixth sense and went to check out the crash site by himself. When he saw the stone, he felt an extreme hypnotic pull radiating off the stone, with the holes looking like eyes staring into his soul. He suddenly regains consciousness and finds himself almost on the verge of falling into the ditch. A local kid named Poka visited the crash site alone, dismissing any possibility of danger, and was found in a comatose state having suffered total amnesia. Dinanath fears that a similar telepathic pull will affect him too if he drew near the stone and inspects it from a distance.

That night, within a trance, Devil compels Dinanath to write a detailed explanation regarding the stone. Devil conveys that this stone is an extra-terrestrial spacecraft possessing alien beings, who have migrated to Earth due to the presence of a supernova near their planet. These aliens are owners of high intelligence and want to colonize Earth, a process that they have rendered into motion with the first victim being Poka. They want to absorb human intellect to achieve even higher intellectual superiority and many other spacecraft are on their way to Earth. Devil conveys that only Professor Natboltu Chakra can deal with this situation proficiently and he must be summoned immediately.

Dinanath brings the Professor to Shiuri and he arrives with a large basket containing a specialized bowl, crafted from lead and proprietary metals designed to block extraterrestrial energy waves. At night, the duo go out on an expedition and discovers green vapor and a linear laser beam emanating from the stone into the sky. The Professor realizes that the aliens are trying to communicate with their kin and charges at the stone with the containment vessel. Upon sensing danger, the rock emits a rainbow-colored laser which throws the professor off the path. The stone lifts into air along the laser beam and escapes into deep space, leaving the Professor frustrated at his inability to capture the specimen

Ulka

After a calamitous mid-space collision leads to the disintegration of an expeditionary spacecraft, the crew housed within it scatters across infinite space. Jayanta, Shitangshu, Rajen, Sukriti, the Captain, Ashanta Sanyal, Harihar, and Arjun are the surviving crew members who find themselves displaced and torn-away from one another. Their propulsion force units become dysfunctional leading to them being scattered across space, in the absence of communication and grouping, each moving towards their own cosmic path.

Erratic radio connection is retained for a short while but the grim realization of their unavoidable descent into the void, leads to internal conflict and minor squabble within the group. Tension escalates over the unsteady communication channel with the Captain putting the blame upon Ashanta Sanyal, holding him accountable for their inevitable doom. Ashanta Sanyal openly rejects the Captain's authority. In the meantime, each crew member comes face to face with several cosmic hazards. Arjun's life support suit fails him, sending him into intense panic over the radio. An unidentified crew member in a hysterical state grabs Jayanta and Jayanta strikes the man's visor to free himself, leaving the man to drift away dead into the void. Harihar, while in delirium, recalls his insurmountable wealth back home. Ashanta Sanyal drifts into a periodic meteor shower between Mars and Venus (identified as the "Meermeden" cluster) and is swept away into deep space, bidding Jayanta a final farewell. Shitangshu gets pulled towards Pluto while the Captain gets drawn directly towards the Sun.

Jayanta faces a life-threatening situation after his collision with a micro-meteor which punctures his suit causing air leaks that he barely manages to close, and injures his leg. Jayanta soon accepts his fate while descending towards Earth. Upon entering Earth's upper atmosphere, his body incinerates completely into a glowing streak of light and a child from a small village looks up to see a shooting star falling down upon Earth.

Je Machine Bhabte Pare

An unidentified narrator visits his eccentric friend Kalyanakho, who suffers from chronic insomnia. While debating the nature of intellectual capacity in machines, Kalyanakho poses a philosophical question dissecting the encyclopedic meaning of the word: if machines work and exert force, are humans not organic machines too? The narrator counters by asserting that only humans possess intellectual capacity. Kalyanakho asserts that mind and consciousness are omnipresent in the universe, by citing natural examples of carnivorous plants, directional vine growth, and eucalyptus roots navigating underground obstacles alongside mineral crystallization. Kalyanakho borrows from the work of Herbert Spencer and John Stuart Mill to deliberate upon the definition of life. He also cites Jagadish Chandra Bose's work on metallic fatigue to assert that all matter in the universe is endowed with energy and consciousness, arguing that when a machine is active it is a living, thinking being.

A loud noise from Kalyanakho's workshop interrupts the debate, compelling him to visit the room where entry is forbidden for most people except the mechanic Bhairav. Upon returning from the workshop, the narrator notices scratches upon Kalyankho's face and he proclaims that due to his engrossment in their debate, the machine he had left idle had become angry. The narrator departs into the stormy night, unsettled with the revelation that his friend is obsessed with his machines, but soon feels himself getting enlightened in a sudden surge of philosophical realization which compels him to go back.

When he goes back to Kalyanakho's house, he finds the house engulfed in darkness. He sneaks up to the workshop and peeks inside to find his friend engrossed in a game of chess. His opponent is a massive, cape-wearing humanoid figure with a four-sided head and disproportionately long arms. With the progression of the game, the narrator soon realizes that the figure sitting across his friend is actually a chess-playing automaton that Kalyanakho had claimed to invent previously. When Kalyanakho makes a winning move, the machine shows signs of human-like rage and starts pounding the table and vibrating violently, pointing towards a control board anomaly. The only shining candle gets knocked over and the automaton charges at Kalyanakho, violently strangling him. The narrator rushes into the room to save his friend and in a sudden flash of light, witnesses the machine sitting contently over Kalyankho's motionless body, before losing consciousness.

The narrator wakes up in a hospital room three days later, to find that Bhairav had saved him that night when the house went ablaze due to a lightning strike which also killed Kalyanakho. Years later, the narrator writes this story in memory of the deadly creation that Kalyanakho had made, as he senses his impending death.

Proloy Enechilo Parar Dhumketu

The narrator, an astrophysicist named Dr. Bhandari is stationed at a secret military base in the NEFA region of North East India. He recounts a strange incident during his time in the military, wherein he encountered a mysterious unidentified object or flying saucer. Expecting alien figures to ascend from the saucer, Dr. Bhandari is shocked to find two humans emerging. These two figures convey in fluent Sanskrit that they are not extra-terrestrial beings, rather inhabitants of an ancient, highly advanced and extinct civilization in the Himalayas. The visitors explain that a mercury comet destroyed their civilization called Ashtanag. An enormous tide of mercury erupted from the comet as a result of gravitational pull which obliterated Ashtanag. Before the departure of the comet on its cosmic journey, the scientists of Ashtanag calculated its trajectory and came up with two scientific innovations: a teleportation machine and the cryo sleep process, similar to Kumbhakarna's sleep. The two scientists slept for Millenia through the aid of the cryo sleep, in their solar-powered aircraft so that they could awaken years later and deploy a comet-destroying machine to avert the threat that is due upon the completion of the comet's cosmic journey in its elliptical orbit.

Dr. Bhandari verifies their account by examining the blackboard depicting the Milky way, stationed inside the craft's dome-shaped laboratory. The stellar positions depicted on the blackboard correspond perfectly with the position of stars in the skies from ten thousand years ago, according to Dr. Bhandari's astronomical calculations. The military commander becomes paranoid, assuming that these individuals are alien invaders or enemy spies and attempts to trap them. The visitors employ a paralyzing ray to incapacitate the military and flee back to their craft.

The moment their flying saucer sets to depart, the mercury comet suddenly appears on the sky, threatening widespread destruction. The ancient scientists, incapable of deploying their missile system due to military intervention, sacrifice their life and pilot their flying saucer on a kamikaze trajectory directly into the head of the comet. The payload explodes and the mercury mass vaporizes, saving Earth from planetary destruction and leaving Dr. Bhandari and the military to lament the loss of the benevolent visitors.

Nakhotro

The story is presented as an introspective journal entry of an astrophysicist who is also a Jesuit priest, and who serves as Chief Astrophysicist on a deep-space vessel on scientific expedition. The ship is returning from the Phoenix Nebula, three thousand light-years away, laden with a vast store of data and relics. The narrator is in the midst of a deep crisis of faith, triggered by a catastrophic discovery made during the mission, and one that he knows will soon destroy his remaining religious conviction when presented to his skeptical crew.

The goal of the expedition was to investigate the remnant of a supernova that exploded six thousand years ago, leaving behind a bright, expanding shell of superheated gas, and a dense white dwarf star in its center. But the crew found one last planet in the furthest reaches of the system, spared from total destruction only by its great distance from the central star. The crew landed on the scorched planet and discovered a huge monolith, a mile high, which was the entrance to an underground vault. The vault was a time capsule, built by a very advanced human-like civilization that had discovered that their own sun was going supernova. Trapped within their star system by the limits of their interstellar spacecraft, the inhabitants spent their final years preserving the zenith of their culture- art, music, science, and history, in the hope that some future spacefaring civilization might find their legacy. Through these records of visual documentation the expedition crew saw a peaceful, lively and ethically honorable society destroyed at its flourishing peak.

The crew sees the disaster as proof of an indifferent universe bereft of divine purpose, while the narrator initially attempts to reconcile the tragedy with theological logic, asserting that the Creator owes no explanation to creation. Ultimately his faith is broken when he calculates the exact year the light from the supernova reached Earth. His astronomical calculations confirm that the cosmic explosion occurred exactly 3,000 light years ago, bringing to light that the catastrophic glare of the dying star was the very light that shone in the eastern sky over Bethlehem to herald the birth of Christ. The fateful irony leaves the priest in disbelief and he questions the presence of a benevolent God and his will to destroy an entire innocent civilization just to illuminate a sign for humanity.