HaJaBaRaLa

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HaJaBaRaLa (হযবরল)
Author	Sukumar Ray
Translator	Jayinee Basu
Illustrator	Sukumar Ray
Country	India
Language	Bengali
Genre(s)	Novella
Publisher	Nishtha at Lulu.com
Publication date	1921
Published in English	2005
Media type	Print (Paperback)
Pages	68 pp (Eng. trans.)
ISBN	ISBN 1411639839 (Eng. trans.)

HaJaBaRaLa (Bengali: হযবরল) or HJBRL: A Nonsense Story is a novella or novelette by Sukumar Ray.

This story belongs to the nonsense genre, as does most of Sukumar Ray's fiction. There is a similarity to Alice In Wonderland in plot organisation and the ending, though these characteristics could be said to be common to most nonsense stories.

1 Plot
2 Characters
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Plot

The story starts with a boy suddenly waking up from sleep and finding that the handkerchief he placed just beside him before sleeping has turned into a cat. He starts talking to the cat, who speaks nonsensically about a handkerchief and a semicolon before disappearing over the hedge. He tells him to go find Kakeshwar, in a series of calculations that eventually tell him that he is in a tree. The boy finds Kakeshwar doing calculations in a slate and doing some mathematics that appears very unusual to the boy. This includes division that is purely illogical and fallacious. After arguing over math, a goat appears and narrates his life about eating paper and other artificial things. Hijibijbij appears and laughs after denouncing three names for all his family at three inquiries. Then many animals appear, and confusion results. The boy wakes up from his odd dream and finds the cat, which does not talk.

[edit] Characters

Most of the characters have found idiomatic usage in Bengali language, which is true for many of Ray's works.

Some of the main characters are:

Kakkeshwar kuchkuche: A raven who wears a clerk's green eyeshade while performing mathematics.

Gechodada: A character that is only alluded to by Kakkeshwar but never appears in the story.

Hijibijbij: A person who imagines very improbable situations and laughs at them.

Byakaran Singh BA Khadyabisharad: A goat who delivers academic lectures on non-academic subjects, such as what goats do not eat.

Udhho and Budhho: dwarf-like creatures who are fighting one moment and hugging the next. The phrase "Udhor pindi Budhor ghare", meaning (but not literally translated to) "the shoe is on the other foot", has become a very common idiom.

There are many other characters.