Mapping the Postcolonial Genius: Satyajit Ray’s Professor Shonku

This chapter argues that what distinguishes Satyajit Ray’s Professor Shonku as a superhero is his imagination which challenges the conventional and established rule or mode of science. His approach disrupts the cultural binary of science and aesthetics by performing a mode of doing science that is not constricted within a narrow boundary defined in a narrow way. Scientific knowledge is a complex historical process, and the aim to exorcise science from other disciplines is a political manoeuvre. With a view to lend greater relevance to the study, this chapter centres on the making of the scientist as a postcolonial superhero—his philosophy, politics, and persuasions. This chapter also serves as a critique of the contemporary culture of bad science that artificially restricts imagination, fiercely endorses it as the only medium of knowledge, and promotes the superiority of a ‘scientific mind’. This chapter reinforces the idea that non-scientific cultures and procedures which are deemed to be ‘strange’ and ‘uncanny’ carry a promise of an alternative world of knowledge.