Let Alone Western Academics, Even Most Indian Academics

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Let Alone Western Academics, Even Most Indian Academics NONSENSE CLUB AND MONDAY CLUB: THE CULTURAL UTOPIAS OF SUKUMAR RAY DEBASISH CHATTOPADHYAY Let alone Western academics, even most Indian academics remain unacquainted with the name Sukumar Ray (1887-1923) and his cultural Utopias, the Nonsense Club, and the Monday Club. In fact, to many of his countrymen, he is known as the father of Satyajit Ray, the great film director, littérateur, and music composer. Yet, of the great nineteenth-century humanists like Rabindranath Tagore, the Nobel laureate; Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, the famous Bengali novelist; Rammohan Ray, the great social reformer; and Pundit Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, the great scholar, who emerged during the renaissance in undivided Bengal, Sukumar Ray was undoubtedly one of the most glorious. Sukumar came from a family where art, literature, science all found expression together. His father, Upendrakishore Roychoudhury, is chiefly remembered for his children’s literature, but was undoubtedly one of the great products of the Bengal Renaissance. As his grandson, Satyajit Ray observes: We find in Upendrakishore a rare combination of science and the arts, the east and the west. He played the pakhwaj [a musical instrument, almost like a tom-tom, used as an accompaniment in Indian Classical music] as well as violin; wrote devotional songs while carrying out research in printing methods; viewed the stars through a telescope from his own rooftop; wrote old legends and folktales anew for children in his inimitably lucid and graceful style, and illustrated them in oils, water-colours and pen-and-ink, using truly European Techniques. His skill and versatility as an illustrator remain unmatched by any Indian.1 1 Satyajit Ray, “Introduction: The Select Nonsense of Sukumar Ray”, in Sukumar Complete Works, trans. Sukanta Chaudhuri, New Dehli, 1987, i. 244 Debasish Chattopadhyay Sukumar’s mother Bidhumukhi Devi was the daughter of the famous Brahmo leader, Prince Dwarakanath Gangyopadhyay and Kadambini Gangyopadhyay, the first lady doctor in India. In fact, the entire family was a cultural galaxy comprising bright luminaries. It was almost a solemn ritual in the family to indulge in literary and cultural interactions, one of the salient features of which was to cap verses. As Leela Majumdar, Sukumar’s cousin and biographer has noted “in the evening the juniors and the seniors of the family took part in the cultural gatherings of the family – what we may call a process of culturally interactive familism. An instance of capping verses may be cited: Once a bone stuck in a tiger’s throat, In pain, he hardly felt any comfort. Sleepless, for three days and nights he spent, Fomented, rubbed in oil, turmeric applied.2 As Leela Majumdar points out, it was customary for each member of the family at such gatherings to compose a line of verse, most often hilarious, and another member had to couple it with another line. Thus it became an intellectual, creative sojourn in an entertaining, amusing way – a paradoxical combination of jocundity and serious creativity, the essential binary in the character of Upendrakishore – that was to find expression in the cultural utopias of his son Sukumar. It was due to the direct impact of the cultural environment of the family, therefore, and due to the indirect influence of Rabindranath Tagore, a close friend and coeval of Sukumar’s father that the Nonsense Club, and the Monday Club (the latter somewhat humorously with an edge of pejoration called Manda Club, meaning Candy Club), were established. On completion of his college education, Sukumar founded the Nonsense Club in 1907 with his friends and relations as members. The first meeting of the Monday Club was held in the house of Amal Home, one of the members of the “Club”, on 21 August 1915.3 Sukumar was the leading spirit of both Clubs, the members of which included some of the most promising young artists, writers, critics and scholars of the day. The coming 2 Leela Majumdar, Sukumar, Kolkata, 2001, 23 (translation mine). 3 Ibid., 99. .
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