We Are Grateful For All Your Nonsense and Hilarity
At Pen: Diya Basu
On Sukumar Ray's birthday
In memoriam:
Hidden beneath layers of YA fantasies and science fiction, are a couple of books that I had almost forgotten had existed. Funny, that. Since those were the harbingers of my fluency in my mother tongue.
Half forgotten memories of a childhood long past start coming back to me in fragments, of my grandmother sitting with books bearing titles in powerful fonts----"আবোল তাবোল", "পাগলা দাশু" , "হ য ব র ল". I remember my grandmother reading them out to me, creating her own impressions of characters that would make me roll in fits of shrill, childish giggles.
Even when my grandmother was not reading them out to me, I would sit with those books open on my lap, going line by line and trying to make those impressions with the same gusto as my grandmother. Alas! She had a greater talent when it came to storytelling.
Yet the innocence of these dust coated books pervades my cynicism even today, and I can laugh at the text in these books although the laughter sounds rusty. Today , again , I am reminded of that man....A legend, who is a childhood companion of every Bengali kid, a man of wisdom yet unafraid to think like a child. "Dream big" they say, "don't be afraid of self expression" no matter how ridiculous it may sound" , well easier said than done. This man, was the one who lived it, freedom in its truest sense and gave the world an unending bundle of nonsense and hilarity, one that gives people joy even to this day.
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