While we were being brought up in a carefully cultivated English wilderness picking daffodils and chasing the rain away, Grandma tried to ensure that Ramgorurer Chhana did not pale in the British glamour of Humpty Dumpty. Decades on, things haven’t changed much. Children are still fed a colonial diet of egg-heads, mice romping on clocks or Jack and Jill’s misadventures. It’s just that Grandma and her army of Abol Tabol heroes are lost on this generation’s tech-happy child. Nonsense Mahul, a compilation of animations of Sukumar Ray’s poems might just change that. Conceptualised by Mahul, a city based group of poetry performers, the album comprises animated videos of six Sukumar Ray poems – Danre Danre Droom, Huko Muko Hyangla, Shabda Kalpa Droom, Ram Gorurer Chhana, Ekhushe Ain and Chor Dhora. The CDs and DVDs come with English subtitles and the poems have been strung to tune by the band. “We perform all kinds of poems on stage. But we had always wanted to revive people’s interest in Sukumar Ray’s poems. Also this generation’s children have so many distractions that they need to be initiated to Ray’s works properly,” says Palash of the six-member Mahul.

It was difficult to choose just six poems from the nearly inexhaustible cache of Ray’s works. “We finally decided to work on the ones that we perform most on stage,” says Palash. Post-selection, the music for the poems were ‘arranged’ the way it is done in case of songs. “We don’t exactly sing the poems out. One or two lines in the poems are recited in a sing song way,” says Palash. Nonetheless, the music for the animation was scored after a lot of brainstorming. “Like we have used a lot of drums for Shabda Kalpa Droom. The piece has a very rock-feel to it,” points out Palash.

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