Shankar Ray Choudhuri is a fictional character and the hero of the novel of Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay, Chander Pahar, a young Bengali man from a village in undivided Bengal, India.

He is a 20-year-old youth, recently graduated from college and due to financial difficulties in the family, was about to take up a job in a jute mill of Shyamnagar, a prospect he absolutely loathes.

[2] Since childhood, geography has been his pet subject; he has wanted to follow the footsteps of renowned explorers like Livingstone, Mungo Park, and Marco Polo, all of whom he has read about.

By a stroke of luck, he secures a job as a clerk in Uganda Railway through an acquaintance already holding a post there and joyously rushes to Africa without a second thought.

While at this post, Shankar one day encounters, rescues and nurses Diego Alvarez, a middle-aged Portuguese explorer and gold/diamond prospector.

The explorers set off, much against the villagers' advice, braved the dense jungle and hostile environment but met with disaster- for Carter was gruesomely killed, supposedly by the Bunyip.

Eventually, they get lost in the forests where Alvarez suffers death at the hands of a mysterious monster, the same that had taken Carter's life, the Bunyip.