Monday, June 30, 2008

Hey riddle diddle

What nonsense! "No, it makes sense, I am seriously searching nonsense."

The authors of The Tenth Rasa - An Anthology of Indian Nonsense probably had this conversation N-times as they travelled across India to collect its multi-hued nonsense. But what fun! And everyone is accomplice, from Tagore to Vaikom Basheer to Gulzar to Tenali Ramalinga who leaves me in splits with his Meka tokaa? meka toka meka (Goat ta-tail go-goat goat tail).
Naturally we all love the foodie ones best:
Idli-Pom
Idli lost its fiddli
Dosa lost its crown
Wada lost its wiolin
And let the whol band down,

Explained
Idiyappam keeps yapping
Puttu plays golf
Uthappam's my girlfriend
Mutthu's real name is Rolf.

Frankie
I love Frankie, you love Frankie
Obviously, there is some hanky-panky.
Frankie's not a little boy
who lives down the lane.
He's a fat and juicy roll
with a kebab for a brain.

Then there is the bathing hymn:
Sounds just like my mum on a sunday morning
Om havum bathum namaha
On the body applyum oilum namaha
Scrubscrubum namaha rubrubum namaha

This like me
Glugglugum namaha blugblugum namaha

And this like my brother
Om niceum cleanum namaha
Bring out sum snacksum namaha!

The book is a soofer treasure. It has nonsense picked from hindi cinema (wait, that doesnt make any sense), urdu poetry, folk tales and rhymes. Then there are the absolutely hilarious takes on Ramaswamys and a take on the tamil "marma naavals". I am not upto any semiotics at the moment, but for more details, here and there.

haia, haha, heengheengheeng,
none of these mean anything.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Oomm thanksum youummm

Checkoutum the nonsensebloggumm

tenthrasa.blogspot.com

Cheerioummmm!

the other romila said...

gigglum gigglum
people read my blogum!
:)