Abol Tabol, one of the celebrated works of Sukumar Ray, introduces us to a bizarre and outlandish people, places, animals and things, and shakes one out of his strapping reality. Sukumar Ray is known for his non-sense fiction and has won million hearts through his writings. Abol Tabol takes us to a journey in an incongruous world, where nothing seems real, rational or logical, yet one would love to believe that such a world existed.
In the entire narrative of Abol Tabol one will witness weird association among people and objects. Though they are apparently nonsense and meaningless but they mean something when you carefully read through.
The eccentric association forms the basic idea of Ray`s non sense fiction. The apparently odd ideas merge with regular norms making the poem comprehensible. This type of poems, which falls under the category of light verse, is mostly colloquial, bank and pun. It treats the poem with good natured satire.
"Masi go masi pacche hasi
Neem gachete hocche seem
Hatir matay byanger chata
Kager basay boger dim."
While looking at the poem one might not get exactly what it is trying to portray, but the words have power and provides the push and the entire composition draws attention. Sometimes he invented words and also combined two words into one to formulate a Portmanteau, which makes the poem sound weird. Ray`s wit is further evident in the following lines;
"Tin buRo pondit takchuRo nagare
ChoRe ek gamlay paRi dey sagore
Gamlate chneda chilo age keu dekhoni,
Gaankhani tai more theme gelo ekhoni."
Through his creativity in Abol Tabol, Ray introduced series of unusual animals and they are well illustrated as well. For example the Tnyashgoru is actually a bird whose detailed description is provided by Ray. Some of his other creations like Ramgorurer Chana, (means serious men) Hnuko Mukho Hyangla (greedy for food) and Kumropotash (signifies fat men) also stand out.
The narrative of Abol Tabol is complicated by absurdities and irrationalities and one is left questioning the values and norms. This is actually nothing known as absolute reality in Ray`s Abol Tabol.
