Hybridism, Humour and Alternative Possibility: Negotiating Identity In Sukumar Ray's Literary Nonsense

There has been an eternal dilemma to look for a suitable definitive analysis of the term humour in the history of cultural studies primarily because of the fact that it is so very common in the everyday usage and interactions that we assume some sort of a generalized notion regarding the various meanings and nuances of the term. Now the relationship of humour with that of a postcolonial worldview makes it all the more intrinsically problematic. This argument is often lost in the whirlpool of literary jargons leading to an enigmatic representation of the true mechanism of humour. In this paper I have endeavored to identify a strong connection between the threads of Postcolonialism and humorous practices in the backdrop of literary nonsense in the much celebrated as well as debated poems of Sukumar Ray. Through this I have tried to identify how this laughter vividly marks the fissures of an existing power structure and proposes an alternative possibility of subversive practices. The confronting zone of colonizer/colonized interface promotes a site of constant flux and agony; contestation and protestation in which all identities are dissolved into an ultimate fluidity. It is from this state of overlapping identity crisis there germinates a third space of negotiated identity, a hybrid culture that threatens the overriding manipulations of the colonial discourse.