Ratnottama Sengupta relives the fascination of Sukumar Ray’s legendary Abol Tabol, which has just completed its centenary
Sukumar Ray, the creator of Abol Tabol[1], came into my life long before Upendra Kishore Roy Chowdhury, the author of Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne. Pather Panchali, the timeless novel, cast its spell when I outgrew the ghost stories penned by the father for kishore-kishoris, the young adults of Bengal. And Satyajit Ray, Sukumar’s son, became an icon only after I got my primary lessons in film viewing.
But, to go back to the beginning: I was a pravasi toddler growing up in Bombay when I would lisp, Baburam Sapure, kotha jaas bapu re/ Where are you off to, snake-charmer Baburam! And I’d recite, Ramgarurer chhana, haanste taader maana[2]! No no no no, we shall not laugh, I’d say, trying to choke my own laughter at the thought of forbidding laughter. For, by now, I would also fondly spout, Maasi go maasi, pachhe haansi – Neem gaache tey hocche seem… Aunt dear Aunt, I’m rolling in laughter that broad beans are growing on the neem tree! The mushroom wants to be an umbrella for the elephant, and a crow’s hatching the egg of a stork! Yes, I would laugh too as I recited these lines. For I had learnt that contradictions are funny.
There were other poems that I learnt by rote without knowing they were limericks, not mere rhymes. Some, I later realised, told stories; some were satires aimed at Sukumar’s own Banga samaj – the Bengali society – and some were oblique critiques of the Imperialists then Lording over his land. Hunko mukho hyangla, bari taar Bangla, do you know his dour-faced compatriot? And have you encountered the three pigs maathay jaader neiko tupi? The three pigs wearing no hat!
But most of all, his critique of his compatriots comes through in Sat Patra, A Suitable Boy. I won prizes for reciting it, long before I understood the critique of a Bengali father’s keenness to marry off his daughter to a ‘suitable boy’ – even if the proposed groom is dark or deaf, drunkard or devil…
It took years of growing up, in the literary family of Nabendu and Kanak Ghosh, to realise that some of the lines I heard every day were not abol tabol katha, mumbo jumbo words spewed out perfunctorily. So, my mother never took ‘No’ for an answer: “Utsahey ki na hoy, ki na hoy chestaay?” She’d quote Haaturey to say, “what can not be achieved by enthusiasm and effort?” And if I screamed to protest, she’d simply smile and ‘admire’ like the he-owl, “Khasa tor chechani, how sensationally you scream!” While Baba, come winter, would keep repeating, “Kintu sabar chaitey bhalo, powruti aar jhola gur[3]!” Who would have thought of clubbing the daily bread of the rulers with the winter delicacy of the ruled rustics!
When I visited Kolkata, I often heard the phrases “Narad! Narad! (let the fight begin)”, “Gechho Dada (here now, off again now)”, and “Nyara beltala jaay ka baar (how often does a bald-pated man walk under the wood-apple tree).” And I wondered, did Sukumar Ray weave poems around the phrases, or did they become part of our colloquialism, thanks to Abol Tabol?
It was Baba who brought me alive to the literary merits of the verses sans sense. And even as I studied Edward Lear as a student of literature, I recognised that Sukumar Ray pulled off the harnessing of contradictions with as much ease as he surprised us with his endings. Ei dekho notebook, pencil e haatey,/ Ei dekho bhara sab Kil bil lekhatey[4]. Yes, Ray’s Kheror Khaata – handmade rough red cotton cloth wrapped scroll book — was overflowing with thoughts, words and illustrations. If he was talking of the lack of coherence in God’s own country, Shib thakurer aapan deshe, he was also making fun of Ekushey Aiin, The Law of 21, whereby Karur jodi gof gajaay, a man would have to pay a hefty tax for even the natural occurrence of whiskers! And Abaak Kando! How strange that he ate with his hand, se naaki roj haat diye bhaat maakhey!
Like Satyajit Ray’s reading of his granddad’s Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne, Larai Khyapa has nuggets hidden in the lines to protest the war mongering of nations. So, Saat German, Jagai eka, tabuo Jagai larey! And Paanch byata ke khatam karey Jagai Dada molo! Jagai, a homegrown brawny, alone takes on seven strapping Germans! And breathes his last only when the last of them is dead!
To conclude, I will quote Bujhiye Bola [5]and say, Ki bolchhili, esab sudhu abol tabol bakuni? Bujhtey holey magaj laagey, bolechhilam takhuni![6]
Didn’t I tell you, you need to read and re-read Sukumar Ray, to understand the truth lining his nonsense poems?
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“Sukumar Ray’s drawings are a unique part of our art tradition. And Swapan Maity has dared to give sculptural forms to those two-dimensional line drawings.” It is tough to put in words the significance of these miniatures in terracotta, of those humour-induced fun-filled drawings of the quirky protagonists of Abol Tabol, said Partha Pratim Deb. The former Dean, Faculty of Visual Art at Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata was speaking at the inauguration of ‘Ajab Kumar’, a weeklong exhibition of reliefs and miniatures in terracotta along with portraits of Sukumar, his father Upendra Kishore, his son Satyajit Ray, and grandson Sandip – each of them a legend in their own right. What made the portraits so special was that they were all done in a single stroke of one unbroken line.
Sukumar Ray – born October 30, 1887; died September 10, 1923 — is easily identified as a pioneer in Bengal’s literary art. His father was not only a writer, he played the violin, he painted, he dabbled in composing music, he was an amateur astronomer, and he was an entrepreneur in printing technology. Upendra Kishore Ray studied block-making, conducted experiments and set up a business in making blocks. His sister, Mrinalini, was married to Hemen Bose, elder brother of pioneer scientist Jagadish Bose, who was an entrepreneur of renown.
Sukumar too grew up to be an expert in Printing Technology. To master that, he travelled to London on a scholarship to train in Photography and Printing Technology at the School of Photo Engraving and Lithography. On his return, he worked to further the family firm, M/s U Ray and Sons, where he was involved with his brothers, Subinay and Subimal. And his sisters, Sukhalata Rao and Punyalata, too were involved in the magazine published by Upendra Kishore Ray, Sandesh[7], which carved a distinct place in the realm of children’s literature in Bengali.
Born at the peak of the renaissance in Bengal when literature to art, religion to fashion, were all experiencing a regeneration after coming in contact with European lifestyle and industrial revolution, Sukumar had among his friends the literary genius Rabindranath Tagore, the scientists Jagadish Chandra Bose and Prafulla Chandra Ray, composer Atul Prasad Sen. Multitalented like his father, Sukumar was adept at photography and had joined the Royal Photographic Society. And apart from limericks, he wrote the stories of Pagla Dashu[8], technical essays on the new methods he had developed in halftone block-making in journals like the Penrose Annual, plays like Abaak Jalpan (The Curious Thirst), a wealth of literature for young readers in Khai Khai[9]. And within days of his passing was published Abol Tabol – mumbo jumbo that etched his name in the mind and heart of every child born to the language spoken by Tagore and Bankim, Nazrul and Sarat Chandra.
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The year was 1993. Swapan Maity, thirty years ago, was a student in the Visual Art Department of Rabindra Bharati University on the campus housed in the ancestral residence of the Tagores at Jorasanko. When his other batchmates spent time singing, playing, painting or simply leg pulling their friends, Maity would tirelessly bury himself in crafting figurines in clay. Some of these figures had naturally different tint – pink or red earth – determined by their source, Ganga in Kolkata or the clay of Rangamati near his hometown Midnapore.
Once satisfied with the finish, the learner would lay them out in the long corridors of the heritage architecture to let them dry in the sun. Even his friends who teased him over his ceaseless devotion to sculpture were left speechless when they recognised the life-like recreation in lifeless mud of the snake charmer, Baburam Sapure; of Uncle’s Contraption, Khuror Kal; of Kumro Potash, the Pumpkin Prince; of the Theft of the Whiskers in Gonf Churi.
The expressive miniatures have added volume to the body of illustrations imaged by the genius of Sukumar Ray. The miniatures, unique then, are still a marvel. Reviewed in the popular magazine Desh [10]of April 9, 1994, they were exhibited in the closing month of 2023 – at Kolkata’s celebrated Academy of Fine Arts – to mark the completion of a hundred years of their creation in a Bengal – nay, an India that was ruled by the imperialist government in the name of King George V of Britain.
Along with the miniatures Maity – whose statue of Don Bosco is a landmark of Kolkata’s busy Park Circus area – had added a few relief sculptures to encapsulate the entire range of the satire robed in rhymes that amazingly continue to be repeated decade after decade by generation after generation, and still are so pertinent.
[1] Literal translation from Bengali: Mumbo Jumbo. First published on 19th September 1923
[2] Literal translation from Bengali: Ramgarur’s children, they are not allowed to laugh
[3] Bengali literal translation: But the most supreme food is bread with liquid molasses…
[4] Bengali literal translation: See the notebook, pencil in hand,/ See it filled with all squiggly writing
[5] Bengali literal translation: Explaining clearly
[6] Bengali literal translation: Were you saying this is all nonsensical talk? You need brains to understand what I was saying…
[7] A traditional Bengali desert
[8] Mad Dashu
[9] Literal Bengali Translation: Eat, Eat.
[10] Literal Bengali Translation: Country
Ratnottama Sengupta, formerly Arts Editor of The Times of India, teaches mass communication and film appreciation, curates film festivals and art exhibitions, and translates and write books. She has been a member of CBFC, served on the National Film Awards jury and has herself won a National Award.
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