LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 22:8 August 2022
ISSN 1930-2940

Editors:
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         T. Deivasigamani, Ph.D.
         Pammi Pavan Kumar, Ph.D.
         Soibam Rebika Devi, M.Sc., Ph.D.

Managing Editor & Publisher: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.

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Locating Textuality in the City through “Literary Nonsense”:
Reading Tagore’s Khapchara (1937)

Abu Farah Hoque

Abstract

It is very difficult to pin down the genre of literature named “Nonsense” for discussion and analysis. This paper will show how Tagore’s Khapchara, written in 1937, emerges as a ‘nonsense verse collection’ through mingling both the Western and Indian tradition of literary nonsense. This paper will also highlight how Khapchara combines nonsensicality and high seriousness. Finally, the paper would tend to locate the enmeshed textuality that can be traced in cities across the globe, especially Calcutta (presently known as Kolkata) through the lyrics written by Tagore.

Keywords: Rabindranath Tagore, Khapchara, City, Textuality, Literary Nonsense, Kolkata.

Participating in the realm of “literary nonsense”, Tagore critically examines a range of social, political and cultural issues of the Nineteenth century colonial Bengal in his Khapchara. He further illustrates the way Calcutta has suffered under the British Raj. It is pertinent to note that most of the lyrics written in Khapchara are deeply enmeshed in the politics of representing the city as a subject of colonial oppression and subjugation.

In An Anatomy of Literary Nonsense, Wim Tigges defines nonsense literature as “a genre of narrative literature which balances a multiplicity of meaning with a simultaneous absence of meaning” (Tigges 47). He further states that “this balance is affected by playing with the rules of language, logic, prosody and representation or a combination of these” (47). It is precisely in this context where I would like to posit Khapchara, a collage of hundred disjointed nonsensical lyrics written by Tagore, which acts as his motivational voyage into the realm of nonsense literature.

The Bengali word ‘khapchara’ means ‘incongruity’ or ‘mismatch’. Now, the title Khapchara is made up of two metaphorical terms- ‘khap’ and ‘chara’; the word ‘Khap’ is the allegorised representation of the very pre-imposed idea of ‘conventionality / the idea of sense-making’ and ‘chara’ is a keener invitation for ‘openness’ and an immense search for free play. Therefore, the title of Tagore’s verse collection is seen hovering between openness and rationale and this hovering dominates almost all the lyrics of Khapchara to the fullest. Furthermore, it should be noted that Khapchara was written at a time which marked the emergence of the urban Bengali middle class ‘Babus’ in Kolkata.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Abu Farah Hoque
Assistant Professor
Maharani Kasiswari College, Kolkata, India
itsabuforu@gmail.com
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