Icons: Sukumar Ray

In an essay, G.K.Chesterton compares the nonsense written by Lewis Caroll and Edward Lear, and comes to the somewhat surprising conclusion that Lear is better. Caroll is universally loved for his tale "Alice in Wonderland" (and its sequel "Through the Looking Glass"), and Alice herself, the heroine of both the stories is as normal as an eight year-old girl can be. It is her weird adventures with the unforgettable characters of the stories that ensure that these works will live on forever.

Lear, on the other hand has contributed the Limerick to the English language.Here's an example:

There was an old man with a beard,
Who said"It's just as I feared,
Two owls and a hen,
Four larks and a wren,
Have all built their nests in my beard."

Delightful.And a much copied format ,with many pretty ribald limericks out there in circulation . It makes you want to compose your own, just like a catchy melody makes you want to tap your toes.

Chesterton's logic is interesting, but I won't go into it.And I've also lost the reference to his essay.I'm hoping that someone will find it for me-- :-)

The icon of whom I write, Sukumar Ray, was the son of litterateur Upendra Kishore Ray Chaudhury, and the father of celebrity film Director Satyajit Ray. Sukumar Ray has delighted generations of Bengali children by his book of nonsense rhymes "Abol Tabol" (English translation:"Nonsense"). The rhymes are pure whimsy. And in rhythm and lilt they surpass anything that Lear or Caroll wrote. The pictures that accompanied the book's first version were drawn by Ray himself: they are amazing pen-and-ink creations and as much a part of the lore of "Abol Tabol" as are Tenniel's drawings of "Alice in Wonderland".
It is impossible to translate Ray into English- all the flavor is lost. Here is a feeble attempt:

Shoshthi Chorron

Shoshthi at play
Will toss elephants away.
Weighs half a ton,
Does Shoshthi Chorron.
He's strong as an oak.
A hockey-stick broke,
Smashed down on his head
By a gangster,'tis said.
He lets out a roar,
And buildings galore,
Quake where they stand,
In his native land.
Hit amidships
By breath from his lips,
Carts overturn.
Shoshthi,I learn,
Purely for laughs,
Tears planks into halves,
By twisting their ends.
When evening descends,
Right from the pond,
That lies just beyond
His garden they fill,
Ten-gallon jars till,
A hundred or so,
Are ready to go,
Full to the brim-
Bath water for him.
-etc-

Abol Tabol compares favourably with anything that Lear or Lewis Caroll wrote. A worthy competitor to Alice in Wonderland is Ray's story Hajabarala which roughly translates into "STUVW". The hero is a boy this time, again about eight years old.This too is a dream.Most of the characters are talking animals, the most memorable one being a crow.

Ray edited the "Sandesh", a childrens' magazine. He died at the age of 32, a premature end of a literary master craftsman.

Anyone with translations of Ray's rhymes is invited to post them to this site.

Ghosts

Do you believe in ghosts?Or flying saucers?Or aliens?

If you do, does it mean you are not educated enough, or sophisticated enough?

We all trust our eyes, and we are certain we just saw what we saw.Actually, it isn't so simple.

I had a very simple yet educative experience a long,long while ago.I was a student then. I turned up at a nearby metro city intending to stay the night with my uncle and aunt.In the typically uncaring mode of thought that I had as a young man, I did not inform them I was coming, intending a surprise.

As I turned the corner into the lane where my uncle lived, who should I meet but my uncle, my aunt and their six-year old daughter.

I let out a shout of welcome.Meeting a cold reception I looked again.

It was another family that I had met, resembling only vaguely my uncle's family.My eyes had played tricks on me.

This was in a bustling city, in broad daylight; no supernatural involved here.But I had spent the last half an hour anticipating the "surprise" meeting. My predilection had caused me to believe that I had seen something that I hadn't.

I believe that we see not with our eyes so much as with our brain.The eyes provide a stimulus to a pattern that already exists in the brain.The brain draws out the pattern and presents it to us, fully formed.

Had it not been so, our ancestors would probably have waited too long to recognize a predator; they would not have survived, and we would not have existed.

Defence lawyers recognize this, and are relentless in cross-examinig eye-witnesses to crime.

OK- so we are programmed to sort of see ghosts under ghostly circumstances.Does it mean that there aren't any?

What do you think?

Terrorism Today

India is a country that suffers more, I think, from terrorism than any other.There are Islamic terrorists in the Jammu and Kashmir, the Naxalites who stretch from Andhra Pradesh in the South to the Nepal border, and the various militant groups in the North-East.It successfully overcame a serious attack of Khalistani terrorists in Punjab that lasted for a decade.For a while it had links with the LTTE terrorists that are ravaging Sri Lanka.So those who wish to study the phenomenon of terrorism could do worse than studying the ebb and flow of various terrorist movements in India over the last fifty years.

Certain facts stand out on even a cursory study:

1. Terrorists do not subscribe to one specific religion.Muslims,Hindus,Christians,Sikhs and Animists are represented in the groups I have mentioned.
2. Behind each movement is a political grievance.
3. Political grievances do not always translate into militancy or terrorism. An ethnic or cultural sub-group with grievances not addressed for years, a determined leadership, foreign funds , foreign weapons, foreign incitement all contribute to this process.It is not necessary for all attributes to be present.
4. All terorists are not the same.Their objectives are not the same.Their methods are not the same, though there is an elemnt of the copy-cat among methods.For instance, the suicide bomber was developed ny the LTTE.It is now being used in the Middle-East.
5. It is very difficult for governments to negotiate with militants/terrorists because citizens don't like it.The Government of USA takes the position "No negotiations."All countries cannot take that stand.All countries should not take that stand.USA is unique in the sense that all terrorists are foreign nationals.Often governments have to face the fact that many terrorists are their own citizens.

If there are any lessons for governments they are these:

1. Listen to your disaffected citizens, even though you may not agree.If disaffection turns into militancy , dialogue becomes difficult.
2. Take affirmative action to bring sub-cultures into the mainstream.
3. Clamp down on those who are using your country to organize militant activity in other countries.

At the end of the day, there is no purely military solution to terrorism.Once disaffection turns into militancy, there are no purely political methods to combat it either.The battle for terrorism is won or lost in the minds of those whose cause the terrorists supposedly espouse.