yy ‘AGOL TABOL ~-Nonsense Verse/ Ray's notion of Non-sense verse/Emergence of meaning from Ray's non-sense verse alle ts un allusion to Bharata’s Natva Shastra, which has a famous chart of the nine ‘werury “Rasas’, or moods (“spirits”): Love, anger, the comie/happy, disgust, heroism, i, Wonder, and, peace. ‘The one that was missing was perhaps the rasa of “whimsy” or nonsense, Rabindranath Tagore noticed the absence, and suggested that a tenth cht he needed (hie also published a volume of writing for children, as well as « collection ‘/ Bengali folk rhyms ealled Khapehhada (1937), which has never been translated i entirety vinar Ray, the most famous Indian nonsensicalist ofall (the Indian [Lewis Caroll) took iarge quite directly, which contained an apologia at the beginning of the Bengali cic Thus book was conceived in the spirit of whimsy. It is not meant for those who do not ‘hat spirit." tn his introduction to The Tenth Rasa, Heyman points out that the Bengali for ‘~piett of whimsy” is “kheyaal rawsh" ~ where “rawsh” is the Bangla version of “rasa.” Thus, The Tesnh Rasa, an det wes the specilic literary genre he is working with quite carefully: "oy begin by classifying literary nonsense texts as those where there is a type of balance ‘sense’ and ‘non-sense.’ Such balance is necessary if the text is not to become either “+ as in a best-selling crime novel, or utter gibberish, as in a baby’s babbling. The foomer is unteinarkable, the latter, unintelligible. Good nonsense engages the reader; must »yite interpretation’, implying that sense can be made, but at the same time it must foil attemprs Jae sense in many of the traditional ways”. In order to keep the balance, the ‘sense" side of ‘c must weigh heavily: Nonsense thus tends to be written in tight structures, that is, “sith strict poetic form or within the bounds of formal prose. It also usually follows meticulously many ruies of language, like grammar, syntax and phoneties. Nonsense stories le characters and the usually simple plots are understandable. in short, in orev to be interesting, nonsense has to be carefully crafted: it usually bowdlerizes the kinds of literary forms with which were most familiar. Heyman while describing the distinctions between nonsense and related genres like issy. and fables writes” ~ ight verse, fantasy, fables-—none of these forms is in itself nonsense. A joke is funny because it makes sense; nonsense is funny because it does not. A riddle is clever because, tually, it makes sense: nonsense is clever in how it suggestively does not. Light verse, bles... nonsense can live in any of these forms and more. Indeed, it thrives on some it some recognizable shape and meaning—something to make sure overarching form that gives she acnsonee techniques do not make the text explode into boring gibberish—yet the form itself ence cn gancinenneremo Scanned with CamScannerADOL TABOL ---Nonsense Verse/ Ray’s nation of Non-sense verse/Emergence of meaning from ftay’s non-sense verse sense iv a kind provides only such (necessary) restraints itdoes not equal nonsense, Thus, own.” vf parasite inhabiting a host form, yet IC has a life o Aho! Tabo! introduces us to strange people, places und animgls that knock us out of our strapping: reality, In one of Ray's poems, (untitled), a younger brother in utter disbeliet narrates, the commonplace incidents of our lives to his elder, “Have you heard of the place where our old Goctor Hives? He seems to eat rice with his hand! I've heard,” the younger one continues, “that he fools hungry if he goes without food, his eyes close it he's too sleepy, when he walks his feet oxch the ground, he hears with his ears and sees with his eyes, when he sleeps it seems he keeps xiwards!" He urges his elder to visit the place and confirm such impossible “This introduces the keynote of Ray that nothing ean be judged with a unconditional verdiet, as there is no absolute model, ‘The most commonplace practic «und conventions so strictly followed by one ean be just as ridiculous to another. Jris treat vceurn customs ich a kingdom where anything is possible. ‘The king ices— ‘Chabir freme bnadhive rakhe amsatto bhaja’, In BombagaR the queen of the state has a pillow tied to her head, while the queen’s brother busy fiving nails on buns. Though apparently meaningless, they ma. mean something. Queens, in most cases, enjoy a lot of rest and the royal brother can be thougit of as busy doing nothing The king himself howls like a fox, as many kings may, but then we came to broken ing from the throne! All ofus are with broken bottles and thrones, or nails and buns, but never before did we associate two such ideas together. These kinds of weitd associations form the basis of Ray's nonsense verses. In Ray's dol Tubal meaningless ideas recognizable norms making the poems comprehensible, Bombagak (Bombagaker Raja) i thangs framed, fried and solidified mango j combine Ray did his graduation from Presidency College with double honors in Chemistry and. Vinysics and established his club, which he fondly named *Nonsense Club’, The very name of his ested the direction in which his imagination worked, The two plays that he wrote for Jhatapataand Lakshmaner Shaktishet--are the first instances of Ray"s uproarious finesse. In Jhulapala the solemn teacher looking forward to. opening a tutorial at the Zamindar’s, hhouse translates “I go up. you go down" as finding termites in a gadown a cow sheds tears, Each word is translated in accordance with Sanskrit grammar to tum the obvious incongruous, slation into a witty joke. In Lakshmaner Shaktishe! the mythological charneters are distorted into utterly Indicrous figures as in Aristophanes* The Frogs, Bibhishan here is seared to confront Ravan—Ravan picks pockets; Hanuman is quite reluctant to get the magical herb “Bishalyakarant” to save Lakshman's life and has to be bribed with a banana, ‘There are ares of witty dialogues too. {even in these early plays the characteristic diction of Ray prevails—the language of the amused wakefil mind. ‘To smell the sour sky, to lick it after a shower und find that it has become sweet is a pleasant distortion of ideas that could only have occurred tou genius like Ray, His creations ure Scanned with CamScannereee ORS n-sense verse “Sense verse/Emergence of meaning from Rays ‘unparalleted, if not unprecedented. For Ray w him. ‘as indeed indebted to many English writers before The spontaneous effusion of Sukumar's humor has enriched Bengali Literature and is Xnpatalteled. The wide gamut and the dynamic movement of his faultless rhyme-scheme, the Uninaginable incongruity of his emotive associations astound us at every turn. He had Scientific sobriety in his nature and therefore has been able to evoke a play of the binaries with Such promptness. Indeed, there has always been some real resonance of humor in the domain of Bengali literature but Sukumar’s hallmark of humor is unique and all surpassing. This immense nitl of his refined humor along with the pity of his premature demise would forever be aflame in the reader's mind."] © have been numerous instances of satire in Rengali literature, but the laughter that Ray evokes, with fittle trace of serious mative, is but a unique expression of a rare genius. The last Aare of his genius was the last poem of Abo! Tabo! that he composed in his death bed where he is said to have summarized his works as ¢oRay bnadha ghoRar dim (a bouquet of nonsense). dim kaaler chnadim heem ToRay bnadha ghoRar dim Ghonive elo ghumer ghor Gaaner pala sango mor. {Olden glow of misty moon “And the wreaths of nonsense croon Soilens through my spell of flute Luts my song and lures me mute.} To call him only a humorist is a very partial judgment of his versatile talent, Ray was an artist, an illustrator and an editor. The scientist in Sukumar Ray has fever, however, received adequate recognition. After completing his graduation in Chemistry and Physics in 1906 and 1911, he received a technology scholarship and went to England to study photography and half-tone printing. At that time his father, Upendrakishore Roy Choudhury, the creator of the famous duo Gupi Gayne and Bagha Byane, (later immortalized by Satyajit Ray in Gupi Gyane Bagha Byane, and Hirak Rajar Deshe) ran a business of making printing blocks and researched printing technology. Sukumar Ray grew up in an environment of half-tone blocks, cameras and darkrooms that went into the shaping of the scientific mind of Ray, later explored ays for children. Gazing at the stars at night through his telescope was one of Ray’s favorite hobbies. Ray wrote an excellent article on “Pin-hole Theory” that was published in the British Journal of Photography. (uly 1913 issue) Two more of his articles: “Half-tone Facts Summarized” and “Standardizing the Original” were published in Penrose Annual i Abol Tabol and HasJa-Ba-Ra-La, Ray's imagination takes us to an incongruous world ine imagination reined with logic takes almost a prophetic turn in his essays and takes us + tow congruous future. After the successful launch of rocket in 1920, Ray predicts in his essay “Chnadmaari™ that very soon we shall have rockets carrying two or three men to space and have t to travel to the moon. In “BhnuiphoR” Ray deals with the possibilities of an astronomer Scanned with CamScannerADDL TABOL —Nonsense Verse/ Ray's notion of Non-sense verse/Emergence of meaning from Ray's ron-sense verse underground transport system. To the scientific temperament of Ray, Darwin’s Theory of Evolution was an obvious logic to be accepted. This is reflected in many of his essays. In “GhoRar Jonmo” he begins at the beginning: : back our earth was desolate. it was then like a hot cauldron. When it rained the furiously. Gradually it cooled down and plants and animals began appearing on “Leong Lin water hatte it Scanned with CamScanner