Sukumar Ray's death anniversary today

Today marks 102nd death anniversary of the most famous practitioner of “literary nonsense” in the subcontinent poet, storywriter and playwright Sukumar Ray. On this day in 1923 he died of black fever at the age of 37.

He was son of the famous children's storywriter Upendrakishore Ray Chowdhury and father of the iconic filmmaker Satyajit Ray. Sukumar Ray was also the convenor of Monday Club, a weekly gathering of likeminded people at the Ray residence, where the members were free to express their cheeky opinions about the world at large.

His works such as the collection of poems “Abol Tabol”, novella “Ha Ja Ba Ra La”, short story collection “Pagla Dashu” and play “Chalachittrachanchari” are considered nonsense masterpieces equal in stature to “Alice in Wonderland”, and are regarded as some of the greatest treasures of Bangla literature. Close to a century after his death, Ray remains one of the most popular among children's writers in both West Bengal and Bangladesh.

In 1906, Ray graduated with Honours in Physics and Chemistry from the Presidency College, Kolkata (then Calcutta). He was trained in photography and printing technology in England and was a pioneer of photography and lithography in British India. While in England, he also delivered lectures on the songs of Rabindranath before Tagore won the Nobel Prize. Ray also drew acclaim as an illustrator. As a technologist, he developed new methods of half tone block-making, and technical articles about this were published in journals in England.

While Ray went to England to learn printing technology, Upendrakishore purchased land, constructed a building, and set up a printing press with facilities for high-quality half tone colour block-making and printing. Ray also launched the children's magazine, “Sandesh”.
Apart from the cultural and creative activities, Ray was also a leader of the reformist wing in the Brahmo Samaj.

Ray died in 1923 of severe infectious fever, Leishmaniasis, for which there was no cure at the time. Satyajit Ray later shot a documentary on Sukumar Ray (in 1987), five years before his own death.