Most of us from the middle class have grown up with Sukumar Roy and his poems, rhymes, lyrics whatever one chooses to call them. His first book of poems "Abol Tabol" is often the first book of many children. For me it was too.

I remember the ancient Eid, the first in my life that I can remember when my parents came home with Eid gifts and distributed them to us brothers. For me, it's this book and I was so happy, my first book. It must have been a symbolic joy because I had not yet learnt to read. But that didn't matter as I ended up having the book read aloud by everyone who could.

I laughed, sometimes understanding, often not but in the end it was a book that made everyone including the child happy. Of course for an under three years old there is not much to think about except enjoy the crazy absurd stories about crazy people who all seem mad, bent on doing mad things and everyone is worth laughing about and at. It was a celebration of nonsense if you will.

It was years later that I understood that Sukumar Roy of the "Abol Tabol" ouvre was a very serious piece of work by a writer who had deliberately chosen this form to point out a few facts about the society he lived in and was very very critical of it too. And yet not a nasty word spoken by him in all that he wrote.

Reading Sukumar Roy later and when older

Years later when in my late 40s I read him all over again that the "Abol Tabol" book is a critical part of the colonial cultural dynamics. He was basically declaring his intent to write "nonsense" if you will. The first poem was a declaration to use 'nonsense" as a critical weapon against his own society and situation that Sukumar Roy saw around him and wasn't feeling like cheering them on.

I was so enthralled by this new Roy that I even planned a long essay calling it, "Sukumar Roy, his poetry and his era". But as it often happens to many, some projects get laid off, other priorities take over and it never gets done. However the idea that he was one of the most serious writers of his time always remained.

Last week, my ex-student and current BRAC University colleague Sumaiya Tasnim informed me that she was going to take a course in which the writer would feature and it really enthused me. And I began to read him again. It is becoming a fascinating journey.

Hybridity and colonial culture

On this specific issue several have written but Subhangi Bhattacharya says it succinctly. She says, "In poems like Kimbhut (Superbeast) and Tyansh Goru (The Blighty Cow), pointed anti-colonial satire hybridity and highlighting its negative aspects in a strident manner. Ray is no longer ambivalent about those members of contemporary Indian society who eagerly abandon their own identities in favour of an unthinking (foreign) cultural amalgamation, and the illustrations play a vital role in representing the anxieties attendant upon these mixed creatures."

In Kimbhut (Super-beast), Ray directs his critique toward the enmeshing of varied traditions without proper contextualization. The titular beast, utterly dissatisfied with its appearance and attributes, desires specific attractive features from a host of different animals: an elephant's trunk and tusks, a bird's wings, a songbird's sweet voice, a kangaroo's legs, a lion's mane and a lizard's tail. When its wish is miraculously granted one day, the untenability of this new hybrid existence rapidly sinks in. Kimbhut morphs into a cautionary tale, representing an instance of hybridity gone awry. https://armchairjournal.com/the-political-sense-behind-the-non-sense-deciphering-abol-tabol/

The irony and the message

The irony is that Sukumar Roy's family was beneficiaries of colonialism. His ancestor became the son-in-law of the zamindar of Sherpur and later down the line other members became educated and was in Kolkata where his father Upependro Kishor was a well-known intellectual and social personality.

What identifies them most was their commitment to the Brahmo faith, a hybrid faith produced by Raja Ram Mohon Roy's efforts supported by Dwarokanath Tagore at the behest of the colonial clergy and company administration. It was roughly a monotheistic variation of Hinduism meant to challenge the traditional Hindu upper class and appropriate their wealth.

Many upper and middle class "hybrids" became Brahmo which with all its good intentions didn't have a historical past in Bengal/India. Once it was even stigmatized and inter-faith marriages were forbidden but over time such issues have declined.

These must have been known to Roy but that only shows how deeply he was affected by the colonial culture that was always being touted as superior to the traditional Indian Hindu/ Muslim variety. By challenging hybridity and turning them into cartoons, Roy was probably more effective in dismantling and ridiculing them than many with fiery revolutionary speeches and acts.

By using children's rhyme, deceptively disguised as 'nonsense' lyrics, Roy was in effect a revolutionary critic whose output challenges, among other things, colonial cultural products in a remarkably long lasting life of his work.

While children may read them as fun books, adults need to examine the issues that Roy brought up including hybridization of indigenous ideas and culture as well as the destructive powers of cultural and intellectual imposition by the West.