SANKAR - the pen name of Mani Sankar Mukherji - is one of Bengal's most widely read novelists. He was born in Bongaon, which later became an Indo-Bangladesh border town. His father, a lawyer, moved to Kolkata before the Second World War. Following his father's untimely death in 1947, Sankar gave up his studies and started earning his livelihood - first as a street-hawker, then as a typewriter cleaner, and a part-time school teacher.He then became the youngest clerk in a broking firm at the city's famed Royal Exchange.A chance meeting provided him with the opportunity to become the last clerk to the last English lawyer, Noel Fredrick Barwell, of Calcutta's High Court.Barwell died in 1953. The following year Sankar began an unforgettable serial in the popular Bengali literary weekly, Desh, in which he recreated the last days of the last 'English Lawyer', his chamber and his cases. Kato Ajanarey, was published in 1955, and remains an all-time Bengali bestseller.Other novels followed, including Chowringhee (1962) and Gharer Madhye Ghar, short stories, travelogues and biographies. Two of his novels, Seemabaddha (Company Limited) and Jana Aranya (The Middleman) were filmed by Satyajit Ray. Mani Sankar Mukherji lives and works in Kolkata (Calcutta).