The rhyme rant

Hi, folks. Good to be back writing again, after having gone through some of the weirdest study sessions I've ever had the privilege of going through. One would have never imagined mainstream education going online as it has in the past few months. Classes, tests, assignments, even the end semester examinations!

Sitting through some of the more boring classes, with a steaming cup of coffee in hand and deliberating on covfefe sounding more like coffee than coverage (what were you thinking, Mr. President ka autocorrect?), the mind often wandered into realms it has never had the pleasure of visiting, all these years.

'What if I were a flat Earther?' 'What would be the best food to be had in a jungle on a rainy day?' Not kidding, these are actual things that I spent my precious time thinking about. And the sweet, oh sweet aroma of coffee. As a person that's abstained from all sorts of caffeine all these years, the coffee was a very important part of my thought process and featured somewhere every day. A person with the ability to read minds might as well wonder about my sanity if he/she ever had the opportunity to skim through some of these thoughts.

Anything to keep some online sessions mildly interesting. One fine day, I'd come across the nursery rhymes book again. With some student presentation going on in the background, I decided to open up the book of rhymes and go through these again. You know, read them as an adult, infer some kind of meaning from them. A young adult trying to relive the glory of days past. Days where ones' biggest worries were whether one would be able to see Oswald before being sent off to sleep (and stay awake in bed replaying some episode in the head - a necessary precursor to sleep).

And this is how the first rhyme went.

Ring around the rosy
A pocketful of posies
“Ashes, Ashes”
We all fall!

And the second,

'Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty together again.'

I began seeing a theme. You might have too. These are some of the most depressing songs I've ever heard of, as a child and an adult. While Ring around the rosy does sound like children playing gaily in a lush and green meadow, history suggests otherwise. The song was written during the Great Plague of London circa 1665 (why as a children's rhyme? I have no idea) and invariably, is about the plague.

Going through the choice of words in the rhyme was pretty grim. The symptoms of bubonic plague included a rosy red ring-shaped rash, which inspired the first line. It was believed that the disease was carried by bad smells, so people frequently carried pockets full of fresh herbs, or “posies.” The “ashes, ashes” line is believed to refer to the cremation of the bodies of those who died from the plague. 'Yikes, that sounds a bit too glum to be a school rhyme', I thought.

At first sight, Humpty Dumpty seems even worse. A guy, possibly a happy kid, that's sitting on a wall, falls from the wall (what were you even doing up there, kid?) and is in soo poor a shape that he can never be fixed again. 'Did I not understand what these rhymes meant, in Kindergarten? Was I a fool?' went myself, with these rhymes all being written in simple English and their meanings hidden in (relatively) plain sight.

Going through the book, I found plenty of other similar rhymes (Jack and Jill, anyone?). Goosey Goosey Gander (the Gander throws an old man down the stairs), It's raining, it's pouring (an old man breaks his head), rock-a-bye-baby (you, my dear reader, might have guessed this one, the cradle falls to the ground), Peter Peter pumpkin eater (bad man puts his wife into a giant pumpkin for no apparent reason - why marry if you can't keep a wife?) to name a few (Phew!).

What was the intention behind all these gruesome songs? Was my whole childhood a lie? Is there anything that's just what it seems to be on the surface? Did everything have a hidden meaning? Why sing these to a child? Why would a child remember it and pass it on to progeny? It all made no sense. These songs appear to want to frighten a child into leading a good life. A gander throws down a man down the stairs when he does not say his prayers. This, to me, sounded like another way of a parent making the child say his/her prayer.

Is this how human civilization progressed to where it is today? Propelled by blind faith and fear? Are we nothing more than animals that are able to inspire fear in our progeny? Barring a few exceptions, for example, Ring around the Rosy does sound like a way of easing a child into knowledge that they might soon die from a gruesome disease, some of the other rhymes all seem to enforce rules through fear.

Are these works of bored mothers and fathers who entertained themselves by writing down songs that make grim reading for themselves but do not mean anything to kids? Or maybe parents that themselves did not understand the gravity of what they were conveying? Or a deliberate attempt to mould a child through fear? Whatever the intent might have been, these songs have provided entertainment to generations of children and are universally known and used, to date.

What does one conclude? I have no idea. Maybe, we should start listening to the songs and start saying our prayers and making sure we don't get into risky positions anyplace. Maybe, it is time to rewrite these classics into more relevant ones for the present. You know, don't run onto main roads. Don't take selfies from precarious positions. Keep a secure online identity. Don't post locations and events in Facebook posts. Keep your passwords safe and change them, often. Keep an eye open for weirdness. Lessons for the modern child.

Whatever the reason might have been, the research for this piece did give me a peek into childhood from an adult perspective. A history visit. There's so much here, guys. Many of the rhymes have really interesting backstories. They sometimes don't mean what we think they mean at all.

For example, how many of you knew that Humpty Dumpty is a lesson in history?

Some brilliant history teacher might as well have come up with this rhyme as a way for his students to remember the English Civil War. Humpty was a cannon mounted on the walls of a church tower, that (who?) fell under heavy enemy fire. Unsurprisingly, the rhyme 'Jack and Jill' again has a history lesson in it. Jack here is a moniker for King Louis XVI (the dude that got guillotined during the French Revolution) and Jill his wife, Marie Antoinette.

And then there are rhymes that are sad for no apparent reason. 'Solomon Grundy' is an apt example of this type. Some teach important values in life, such as punctuality and responsibility. Others, like Peter Pumpkin, sound like hopelessly lost relics of the past that find a place in modern songbooks for no reason. There are tons of happy songs too, no fear.

What had I gained from all this? A very interesting hour, material for a blog post, and several glimpses into the way of life in Pre Independence America and Pre Industrial Revolution Britain. There are several more popular rhymes with more inferences and references to famous historical events. So much more that this post would be too long to read. You, dear reader, I hope you take some time off your busy schedule and read up on rhymes and their interesting back-stories.

Who knows where and how learning happens! Even though not paying attention to some of those classes made the terminal exams a pain at times, I still believe it as okay, considering the cultural and historical content I've come across (and thanks to the internet, by the way. Thank you, internet!).

This quarantine might have been different for every one of you - some enjoy it, some bemoan the (temporary) loss of their social lives while yet others stock up on books and series. Friendships happen, friendships strain from lack of contact, new hobbies and talents are discovered, old ones dug up and dusted. Personally, it's been a pretty good time. Reading, doing new things, learning on the internet, getting time to enjoy food, and rediscover old favorites.

What was this all about? I have no idea. Thank you for persevering all this while, reader. Hope you find new things to think about, do, and benefit in some way. Here's to developing as a person, finding new things, retuning yourself, and coming out from this weird artificial hibernation a motivated, better animal.


PS: I'm really interested in knowing about any such rhymes in native languages. Urging anyone that has interesting rhymes to contact, and we'll talk about rhymes!


Yours,
A bemused and hibernating student.