The Tenth Rasa
An Anthology of Indian Nonsense
Welcome to the carnival of nonsense-where hankies turn into mischievous cats, a messiah is born with her feet in her mouth, you can fave hun by socking on the ree-raw and your favourite corn cakes are made of . . . are you sure you want to know? For the last eighteen hundred years Indian arts have been seen in terms of strictly classified emotional effects known as the nine rasas. *The Tenth Rasa: An Anthology of Indian Nonsense* celebrates, for the very first time, what Sukumar Ray called 'the spirit of whimsy', or the tenth rasa, through the topsy-turvy, irreverent, melodic genre of nonsense literature. This fabulous selection of poetry and prose, brilliantly translated from seventeen Indian languages across India, includes works by Rabindranath Tagore, Sukumar Ray, Vinda Karandikar, Gulzar, Dash Benhur, Manoj Das, Navakanta Barua, Mangesh Padgavkar, Sri Sri, Vaikom Mohammad Basheer, Kunjunni and other known, lesser-known and previously unpublished authors. In forms as varied as stories and songs for children and adults, lullabies, folk tales, Bollywood song lyrics and medieval court verse, the writers open doors to wildly imaginative worlds populated by peculiar characters and fantastical creatures, where only nonsense makes perfect sense. Crackling with wit, wordplay and riotous rhymes, and frequently revelling in pure gibberish, this immensely entertaining collection will delight you from start to finish.
Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Fiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.
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What the reading experience may hold
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Fiction
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Warm tone · Measured pace
A comfortable full-length choice for steady daily reading.
A good fit if…
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This book's DNA
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A quick reading snapshot
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- ISBN-13
- 978-0-1431-0086-7
- Language
- English
- Edition record
- OL10099916M
A more thoughtful way into this book
This guide uses the edition details and category signals above to help you choose deliberately. It does not replace the author's work or a full review.
A comfortable full-length choice for steady daily reading.
Begin with its place in Fiction, then notice where the book resists that label.
Read for connection, not completion.
Mark one passage that sharpens the book's central concern and one that complicates it. That tension often reveals more than a quick summary.
Three questions to carry with you
- What does the central character want, and what do they misunderstand about that desire?
- Which detail or relationship changes how you interpret the story?
- What feeling or question does the book leave with you after the plot moves on?
Editorial framework by Wesley Bryan, BookenDeX Founder and Editor.
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