Mountains of the Moon 2013

Chander Pahar follows Shankar Roy Chowdhury, a twenty-year-old Bengali man who has just completed his First Arts degree and dreads a dull job in a jute mill. He craves adventure, wild landscapes, and close encounters with the world’s forests and wildlife, drawn to the legacies of explorers like Livingstone, Mungo Park, and Marco Polo.

By a stroke of luck, he lands a post as a station master at a remote Uganda Railway outpost, secured through a fellow villager, and heads to Africa without a second thought. One evening, a man-eating lion gives chase, and he makes it to his cabin and locks the door. The next day, hoping to be prepared for what lies ahead, he asks the head stationmaster for a Springfield bolt-action rifle and carbolic acid, just after a perilous brush with a poisonous black mamba.

A fellow Indian, Tirumal Appa, serving with the British Army, becomes a quick ally and friend. Their bond grows, and Tirumal visits often. But tragedy strikes when Tirumal becomes the lion’s victim, a brutal turn that steels Shankar’s resolve to end the threat once and for all. He tests his nerve, pouring blood and scattering meat as bait, then draws the lion out and shoots it.

Shankar’s courage earns him the chance to help and care for a middle-aged Portuguese explorer and gold prospector, Diego Alvarez. Alvarez’s stories of daring exploits ignite a shared sense of purpose, and he invites Shankar to join him on a fresh quest—to find the legendary diamond mines rumored to lie deep in the Richtersveld. The tale widens as they encounter Jim Carter, whose own past bravado among those treacherous terrains is referenced, reminding Shankar of the scale of what lies ahead.

Their expedition is plagued by hardship, including a raging volcano that halts their advance. One night, they are unexpectedly attacked by the infamous Bunyip, a mythical monster guarding the mines. The peril escalates when Alvarez, heroically trying to save Shankar, is killed by the monster. Grief-stricken, Shankar buries him with full rites and presses on, setting his sights on civilization and the next chapter of the journey toward the “mountain of moon.”

Struggling forward, Shankar stumbles upon the diamond mines by accident. He enters a cave, becomes disoriented, and emerge from the ordeal only after marking his path with pebbles and carrying back a handful of uncut diamonds as keepsakes. In the dim, echoing cave he discovers the remains of Italian explorer Attilio Gatti and learns from a note that the diamonds can be claimed if the skeleton is buried with Christian rites. He honors the note’s request, buries Gatti’s skeleton, and pockets the diamonds.

Crossing the jungle again, he encounters the Bunyip’s cave once more and, driven by a mix of vengeance and survival, devises a plan: sharpened sticks turned into spears, a crude wooden barrier at the cave’s entrance, and patient waiting. When the Bunyip finally appears, it darts from a height, only to be felled by the trap and killed.

With renewed purpose, Shankar continues his journey, guided by a compass. He becomes lost in the arid Kalahari Desert and nearly perishes from thirst, only to be rescued by a survey team and taken to a hospital in Salisbury, Rhodesia. After he recovers, a trading of fortune begins: four of his diamonds are sold, one is sent to his parents to aid their villagers, and the remaining gems fund a steamer that will carry him back toward further exploration.

In the end, he looks toward the future and vows to return to that cave someday with a large team, determined to carry forward the legacy begun by Alvarez, Carter, and Gatti.