‘The litterateur will continue to live’, Mani Shankar Mukherjee's friend recalls good old days
Telegraph | 23 February 2026
The news that Mani Shankar Mukherjee had breathed his last did not strike Sanjib Chattopadhyay as a sharp stab. It arrived as a mild pause, almost like a held breath.
At the other end of the phone, Chattopadhyay, Sankar’s contemporary and friend, gathered himself and said: “Does it really matter whether Mani-da lived till 92? What difference would it have made had he become a centenarian?” Pause again, and then: “You know, an artiste is truly dead when he can no longer create.”
Would Sankar have created more had he lived longer? Chattopadhyay said: “For quite some time, he had almost stopped writing. If there is no ink left in the pen, what can you do?... And this pen — you cannot refill it from any shop.”
Then he added almost firmly: “But it’s natural and happens to every artiste at a certain time. The litterateur Sankar cannot die. He will continue to live.”
Chattopadhyay spoke of his Mani-da not with grief, but with acceptance and deep admiration. “I first met him in the Desh office,” he recalled. “Mani-da used to visit our editor, Sagarmoy Ghosh. On his way to the editor’s desk, he would tap my head affectionately.”
Later, when Amitabha Chowdhury became editor of Desh, Sankar would call almost every morning. “In that warm voice, he would ask, ‘Ami ki swanamdhanyo sahityik Sanjib Chattopadhyay-er shonge kotha bolte pari (May I speak to the renowned writer Sanjib Chattopadhyay)?’... We were of the same age, but he had begun writing much earlier than I did.”
Sankar’s advice remained etched in Chattopadhyay’s memory: “Don’t hurry while writing. You don’t have to produce more — and rubbish. The process is almost like tying a pot to a date palm tree. Drop by drop, the sap will fill it in its own time.” He added: “Mani-da taught me to wait, to pause, to observe and to absorb life — and only then to reproduce it as literature.”
Chattopadhyay described Sankar’s writing: simple. “You won’t get heavy philosophy in his work. He loved storytelling, and he told stories in the most straightforward way. That is where his strength lay.”
Having worked in various professions while on his literary journey, Sankar carved out a niche in Bengali literature. “You name it — fame, reputation, social standing and from the point of view of a litterateur, Mani-da lived a complete life. I am certain he didn’t die unfulfilled. Readers willingly entered his world and stayed there,” Chattopadhyay said.
He spoke of Sankar’s range. “He had access to almost every genre. He wrote novels, short stories, and then on cuisine, religion, travel and whatnot? His spectrum was vast...”
The trio — Sankar, Chattopadhyay, and Sankari Prasad Basu — often met for addas, discussing literature, life, spirituality and philosophy. “Through those animated conversations, I could grasp the vastness of Sankar. What a widely read and endlessly curious man,” Chattopadhyay said.
Their last meeting was at the Kolkata Book Fair 2025. “He came and sat beside me. I found him quiet, or should I say pensive... A man once so eager for experimentation was sitting still. I sensed he had stopped writing. I felt a deep sadness for him. But I said nothing.”
Turning reflective, Chattopadhyay quoted Tagore: “Maran re, tuhu mama Shyam saman.” “We all must learn to accept death like this. The curtain is about to fall... You see, one must prepare oneself for the journey beyond.”