It seemed like 7 in the evening at 3 in the afternoon. The sky became dark and soon thunderous rain was lashing the window panes. It never fails to gladden the heart. Especially at 3 in the afternoon. Watching the world fill up and spill rainwater, ‘splish-splash’ came to mind and escorted it to my most wondrous nursery rhyme:
If all the seas were one sea,
What a great sea that would be!
If all the trees were one tree,
What a great tree that would be!
If all the axes were one axe,
What a great axe that would be!
If all the men were one man,
What a great man he would be!
And if the great man took the great axe,
And cut down the great tree,
And let it fall into the great sea,
What a great splash-splash that would be!
The thought of that great splish-splash makes me want to rush out and splash the puddled waters. Yeah, I know singing of cutting trees is so downright sinful, politically incorrect. But that was a world enclosed in Ringa-ringa roses/Pocket full of fozes. Now, now, before the elders (sisters, especially) scurry to list all the erroneous details of my rhyming times, let me clarify that my thoughts did go into the meaning, at least once, with alarm for, ‘London bridge is falling down, falling down…’ What was the song and dance about?
But I accept that much of it was a mincy-quincy of sorts. Now that is not uncommon in the age when a small dot of an injury needs to be band-aided, to realize later that the excitement of it obscured the fact that the injury and the band-aid are not on the exact same finger. So I could full-throatily and unabashedly reel off Peter, peter pumpkin eater/ How does your garden grow? And the guy who put the ‘ding-dong bell pussy’ in the well was little Jonny Thin (Flynn) which was so concurrent to the guy who pulled it out - Tommy Stout! Wasn’t that logical? The thin one was naughty and the fat one kind. I’m sure that singular logic made me look at all the fat people with respect for the rest of my life.
Much of the happy, foot-tapping, rhyme-singing time was all that except ‘happy’. Because unlike many of my classmates who sang unthinkingly while yawning, fiddling with anything within reach, chewing hanky corners, picking nose or the others whose focus was solely on getting their exaggerated facial expressions more exaggerated (like this 00), I reflected over word and meaning. Sometimes feeling most threatened. Like I hurried to cover my nose every time a bird came near me because Sing A Song Of Sixpence ended with,
The maid was in the garden, hanging out the clothes ;
There came a little blackbird, and pecked off her nose.
So when an eagle flew too close by during school recess and making me hurriedly cover my nose with both hands, it flew off with my paratha instead. That was a consolation.
If all the seas were one sea,
What a great sea that would be!
If all the trees were one tree,
What a great tree that would be!
If all the axes were one axe,
What a great axe that would be!
If all the men were one man,
What a great man he would be!
And if the great man took the great axe,
And cut down the great tree,
And let it fall into the great sea,
What a great splash-splash that would be!
The thought of that great splish-splash makes me want to rush out and splash the puddled waters. Yeah, I know singing of cutting trees is so downright sinful, politically incorrect. But that was a world enclosed in Ringa-ringa roses/Pocket full of fozes. Now, now, before the elders (sisters, especially) scurry to list all the erroneous details of my rhyming times, let me clarify that my thoughts did go into the meaning, at least once, with alarm for, ‘London bridge is falling down, falling down…’ What was the song and dance about?
But I accept that much of it was a mincy-quincy of sorts. Now that is not uncommon in the age when a small dot of an injury needs to be band-aided, to realize later that the excitement of it obscured the fact that the injury and the band-aid are not on the exact same finger. So I could full-throatily and unabashedly reel off Peter, peter pumpkin eater/ How does your garden grow? And the guy who put the ‘ding-dong bell pussy’ in the well was little Jonny Thin (Flynn) which was so concurrent to the guy who pulled it out - Tommy Stout! Wasn’t that logical? The thin one was naughty and the fat one kind. I’m sure that singular logic made me look at all the fat people with respect for the rest of my life.
Much of the happy, foot-tapping, rhyme-singing time was all that except ‘happy’. Because unlike many of my classmates who sang unthinkingly while yawning, fiddling with anything within reach, chewing hanky corners, picking nose or the others whose focus was solely on getting their exaggerated facial expressions more exaggerated (like this 00), I reflected over word and meaning. Sometimes feeling most threatened. Like I hurried to cover my nose every time a bird came near me because Sing A Song Of Sixpence ended with,
The maid was in the garden, hanging out the clothes ;
There came a little blackbird, and pecked off her nose.
So when an eagle flew too close by during school recess and making me hurriedly cover my nose with both hands, it flew off with my paratha instead. That was a consolation.
You have brought me back to the school days when it rained cows and buffaloes (courtsey Vyas uncle)and we waddled up the dispensary climb through the gusts of knee deep muddy water. It sometimes took shoes off our feet and then we bent down drenching a triangle of the school bag fishing for them. Somehow unlike the other days we were always in a hurry to reach home on those rainy days!
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