Ghanada

Infobox book

name = Ghanashyam Das


image_caption = Ghanada smokes a hooka as Shibu, Shishir, Gour & Sudhir look on expectantly.
author = Flagicon|India Premendra Mitra
country = India
language = Bengali
genre = Science Fiction, Adventure novel, Historical novel, Thriller
publisher = Various
release_date = First story on 1945

Ghanada () is a fictional character in Bengali literature created by Premendra Mitra primarily for children and teenagers. The prefix "da" behind the name "Ghana" commonly means "respected elder brother" in Bengali

Most of the short stories featuring Ghanada take place at the all-male hostel on No. 72, Banamali Naskar Lane in Kolkata, West Bengal where the four young members of the hostel Shibu, Shishir, Gour and Sudhir(the narrator) try to trick or please the middle-aged Ghanada in a variety of ingenious ways to force out his stock of unique stories that range from science-fiction, actionadventure to historical conspiracies. In most of his stories, Ghanada himself is the wonderfully wise and wily hero who travels all round the globe to tackle sinister bad-guys and international conspiracies.Apart from Shibu, Shishir, Gour and Sudhir, there are two minor recurring characters, Rambhuj the cook and Banowari the all-purpose butler of the hostel.

But besides the short stories taking place in No. 72 Banamali Naskar Lane, Ghanada also features in a number of novels and stories set in regular evening meetings of elderly gentlemen on the side of the Kolkata Lake. In these Ghanada is referred to as "GhanashyamBabu" (the prefix Babu in Bengali is roughly similar to Sir in English). The author's style and approach loses the casual sense and gains a more polished, serious and sarcastically formal aura. In these episodes Ghanada never takes on the mantle of a hero himself (as he does in No. 72 Banamali naskar lane), but instead he fashions his narratives on any one of his illustrious, swash-buckling ancestors. Ghanada's ancestors are shown to have influenced highly important historical events like the fall of the Inca Empire or Shivaji's remarkable escape from Agra. A major difference in the stories that Ghanada narrates at the Lake-side meetings to those he narrates at the hostel is that the formers feature heroines and mature scenes while the latters do not. Thus, it can be concluded that the Lake-side episodes of Ghanada were targeted at an adult reader-base.

The author Premendra Mitra has said that he decided to start the Ghanada series to educate children and teenagers on various lesser-known facts and topics of Science and History.

Although the stories that Ghanada tells are almost always fake, the facts, trivia and information are all completely correct.

Books

"Ananda Publishers" has released a complete collection of all Ghanada stories and novels in three parts entitled "Ghanada Samagra 1", "Ghanada Samagra 2" and "Ghanada Samagra 3"