Crawl with Me?

I crawl in and out. The tremendous potential of today scares me. You’d never guess the half of what goes on in my mind. I have to turn away so that you don’t see me smile. It hurts so bad. Not that I was expecting very much else. Routine. Drab. Secure. Sometimes I want someone, anyone to reach out and shake me out of this complacency. Burnt toast and bad coffee. I wish those days were back. I used to spend hours staring up at the ceiling in between exercising. I lost count so long ago. There were all these things I used to share with myself. Silly stuff. The way those little pink flowers used to feel when I rubbed them between my thumb and forefinger. I guess that doesn’t make me an environmentalist’s delight, but I spent hours rubbing them into nothingness. Things were so simple back then. I was walking through a dream and I knew it. Sun-kissed brick walls. Snuggling under the covers on cold nights. Bad movies, good movies. It didn’t matter. I always ended up crying anyway. Reaching up on tip toe to catch a glimple of my tooth-brush wielding self in the mirror. Creature at the door. Hot chocolate and messy fingers. I miss waking up and wanting to dress up. For me. I miss the Main Cor. Half-suffocated in the Metro rush, Charis and I would hold our freshly shampooed hair close and inhale deeply. Showers were smaller, but stronger. Warm water rushing down my face, I didn’t realize when the tears started. Photograph-like moments whizzed past me. It was all there. Almost like the end of a sad movie. I want to press pause when the credits start to unfurl and snigger down at me. It was all then. All of that and so much more. And yet it isn’t enough. I’ll still go to bed in a dark room tonight. Coffee after coffee after coffee. Forced movies and conversations. Just to stay awake that little longer. Just to keep tomorrow a few minutes away. They all know I’m dying deep inside. I’m sorry. I hate the memories which aren’t mine.

The Cradle in Context

Madonna, in an interview on her story-book for children, The English Roses, was asked what she thought of Enid Blyton. Her response: “Who is Enid Blyton?” sent shock waves through generations the world over. Apart from being ironically amusing to the point of being frightening, this response links itself rather inadvertently to the ongoing debate of whether, Freud aside, there can be something called ‘Children’s Literature’. If so, where exactly do the origins of this genre lie?

Oral Literature as a Chronicle of History:

The original intent of Nursery Rhymes and their origins are significant because they pose a challenge to the creation of generic categories and also because they are intrinsically linked to history. The original versions of these rhymes were the common man’s response to his tyrannical king and his interpretation of the ongoing socio-economic evolutions. Nursery rhymes date back to the oral tradition of folk songs and dances, which originated not in the bedrooms of sleepy children, but far away in bars and taverns. Some of these rhymes which are so commonly known today do in fact, date back to the early 1500’s. Mostly however, they originated in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. At that stage, the concept of ‘Nursery Rhymes’ did not exist. Ballads, proverbs, prayers and even street chanting laid the foundation for the rhymes. Some were even believed to have been a part of rituals and customs. They formed a part of what was ‘adult’ entertainment, with strong political and social reverberations. The only rhymes which were meant for children were the counting rhymes. The fact of the preservation of these rhymes is telling of the perseverance of popular traditions, reinforced by the conservatism of childhood. The term ‘Nursery Rhymes’ as it is known today was first used in 1824 in a Scottish periodical called the Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine. It was only in 1697, with the publication of the legendary collection of French tales by Charles Perrault, Contes de ma mere l’oye (which translates as The Tales of Mother Goose), that the concept of Nursery Rhymes as we know them today, catapulted to fame. With this, came the ‘domestication’ of the rhymes and the connected figure of Mother Goose. There has been a lot of speculation regarding who she could have been. One theory says that she was actually the biblical Queen of Sheba. Another says that she was Queen Bertha, the mother of the medieval leader Charlemagne, who was nick-named Queen Goose-foot because she was web-footed. People have also christened Elizabeth Vergoose, a woman who lived in colonial times in Boston, ‘Mother Goose’ and above her grave is a monument of the fictional character. British Literary history proposes the idea that the first collection of Nursery Rhymes was A Little Pretty Pocket-Book, published by John Newberry in London in 1744. Not only was this the first publication in Britain to focus on entertainment for children, but it also established Newberry in the genre of Children’s Literature. American Literature attributes the first collection of Nursery Rhymes to John Carnan’s Mother Goose’s Rhymes, which was published in 1780.

Literature is a marker of the culture of a community. It is a product of the memories, or more specifically, it is about how people choose to remember and document facts. In this manner, history and literature share a symbiotic relationship as one dictates how the other progresses. Tracing the history of Nursery Rhymes becomes a sociological study of the manner in which violence and protest can be masked and re-invented by time, so as to divorce it completely from its roots. Ironically, Nursery Rhymes which are so popular today with children were in fact, never intended for them. Instead, on tracing the origins of the rhymes it is disturbing at the very least to discover that they are deeply entrenched in the bloodiest feuds and the most outrageous uprisings in world history. The sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were ages which heralded change and this was a change which was not won on amicable terms. It involved violent uprootings of established societies. Censorship on free speech and expression, a popular means of suppression even in the twentieth century, resulted in people looking for alternative modes of expression. This found voice in ‘coded’ songs of protest which were recast years later as Nursery Rhymes to be taught to unsuspecting children by equally uninitiated parents.

Nursery Rhymes in Their Historical Contexts:

An examination of the specific context of Nursery Rhymes reveals that Ringa Ringa Roses refers to the Black Death of 1347-50 and the Great Plague that swept Europe in the 1600’s. As the rhyme goes, a ‘rosy’ rash and incessant sneezing were the first symptoms of the disease. The ‘ring’ of roses; the circle in which the children dance, is supposed to signify a wreath. The ‘posies’ are the herbs and spices which people carried in their pockets to sweeten the air choked with death. At the end of the rhyme, the children cry out ‘A-tishoo! A-tishoo!’(Which has now been modified to ‘Ashes? Ashes!’ in reference to the burning of the bodies of the victims) before falling to the ground, in an enactment of death. Another claim is that it originates in the religious ban on dancing among the Protestant community on the nineteenth century. This was countered by the emergent trend of ‘play-party’ games, which consisted of songs sung while moving around in a circle (as a substitute to dancing).

Jack and Jill refers to the beheading of King Louis XIV of France and then of course, Marie Antoinette, whom he married in 1770 and proceeded to exercise tremendous control over his decisions, is the Jill who ‘comes tumbling after’. They ‘went up the hill’ in 1774 when they became King and Queen of France. In the mid 1770’s, France was amidst a financial crisis and heavy taxation caused a nationwide renunciation of royal patronage. In order to quell the uprisings, the King ‘fetched a pail of water’ by way of financial and judicial reforms. However, the French bourgeoisie refused to allow the reforms to be implemented and as a result, the Bastille was razed in the July of 1789 and the Royal family imprisoned. ‘Jack fell down’. In 1792, the National Convention declared France a republic. The King was tried for treason and sentenced to death. Louis XIV was guillotined in Paris on 21 January, 1793. ‘And broke his crown’. Marie Antoinette was later sent to the gallows on 16 October, 1793 and ‘Jill came tumbling after’.

Humpty Dumpty was a common ‘nickname’ for people of large proportions in the 1400’s and was specifically used for King Richard III of England. He was killed in the Battle of Bosworth on 22 August, 1485 which was fought against Henry Tudor, the head of the house of Lancaster. The imagery of Humpty Dumpty’s ‘great fall’ derives from murder of the King as he sat atop his horse on Ambion Hill. Another popular version suggests that ‘Humpty Dumpty’ was the name of a powerful cannon during the English Civil War (1642-49). It was mounted atop the St. Mary’s Wall Church in Colchester to defend the city against a siege in the summer of 1648 when it was hit by the enemy and the top was blown off. ‘Humpty Dumpty had a great fall’. All efforts to repair the cannon proved to be futile. ‘All the king’s horses and all the kings men/ Couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty together again’. Yet another legend suggests that the rhyme refers to Charles I of England. He was toppled by a Puritan majority in Parliament (the great fall). The Cavaliers, the king’s army could not restore his power and he was executed by the Roundheads. A fourth story suggests that the rhyme can be linked to the fall of Louis of France before Napoleon when the peasants revolted and beheaded the king.

Mary Mary, Quite Contrary has been interpreted as a representation of the Church of the Virgin Mary, where the nuns are the ‘pretty maids all in a row’. Another reading says that this talks of Mary, Queen of Scots, the Catholic monarch whose lifestyle irked the Protestant ministers. The ‘silver bells and cockle shells’ refer to her penchant for lavish excesses. The garden is a metaphor for Scotland, with her ladies-in-waiting as the ‘pretty maids’. A disagreeable tyrant, the rhyme was supposed to be a codified outcry: ‘Mary Mary quite contrary’ (her tyranny) ‘How does your garden grow?’ A reference to the numerous beheadings of Protestant martyrs. ‘With silver bells and cockle shells’ (Instruments of torture like thumbscrews and iron masks) and ‘Pretty maids all in row’ draws from the popular nicknaming of the guillotine as a ‘maid’. The ‘Mary’ in the rhyme would also be the equally ruthless Mary Tudor who was known as ‘Bloody Mary’ after the numerous Protestants whom she had executed in order to appease the Catholic Church.

There Was an Old Woman who Lived in a Shoe: This popular nursery rhyme portrays the British Parliament as the ‘Old Woman’ who looked after her many colonies (‘she had so many children’) in the far flung British Empire. Problems and uprisings in the colonies (‘she didn’t know what to do’) were the reasons for the ‘whipping of the children’ which alludes to the appointment of the much hated James I to the throne. Another theory is that ‘The Old Woman‘ referred to either King George II or George III, one of which began the tradition of wearing white powdered wigs earning the derogatory title of ‘Old Woman’. The shoe refers to the British Isles and the children were members of Parliament whom the king forced to hold session (put them to bed.) ‘Broth’ and ‘Bread’ in the rhyme might refer to a Prime Minister or two.

London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down/ London Bridge is falling down/ My fair lady: The rhyme is a clear reference to the tragedies that occurred on the famous London Bridge, built in 1176 to replace the wooden bridges on the site. The construction took 33 years. The bridge which was constructed had a road 20 feet wide and was 300 yards long. In 1209 it had 20 arches, each 60 feet high and thirty feet high. It had a tower and a gate along with dozens of shops and houses, three to seven stories high. There was even a chapel dedicated to St. Thomas Becket in the middle of the bridge. It was the scene of lavish celebrations and once a tourney was held there. All in all it was a massive and sturdy work of architecture. However, it was struck by tragedy time and again. In 1212 many people died when they were trapped between two fires on the bridge. Often barges would break loose and crash into the structure putting prows through walls of houses. Fire struck again in 1623 and destroyed numerous shops and houses. Yet another fire in 1666 loosened the stonework arches of the bridge weakening its foundations. It was declared a public nuisance and on 4 July, 1823 it was torn down. Thus the tragedy prone structure met its end according to the rhyme… ‘London Bridge is Falling Down’.

Several other historical instances find mention in seemingly innocent nursery rhymes. These include the ever popular Baa baa, Black Sheep which despite its bouncy tone is a lament about the burden of paying taxes. In the Middle Ages a peasant was required to give a third of his income, ‘bags of wool’, to the King, ‘my master’, a third to the nobility, ‘the dame’, leaving only a third for himself, ‘the little boy who lived down the lane’.

The rhyme on Jack Sprat and his wife pokes fun at Charles I of England and his wife Henrietta Maria. When Parliament refused to finance his war with Spain and left him ‘lean’ he in turn dissolved the Parliament and imposed an illegal war tax forcing the common people to house the troops. Thus between him and his wife ‘they licked the platter clean’.

Little Jack Horner refers to the incident where the Bishop of Glastonbury sent his steward, Jack Horner to King Henry VIII with a Christmas gift – a pie in which were hidden the title deeds to twelve manorial estates. On the way Jack opened up the pie and stole the deed to the Manor of Mells, ‘he put in his thumb and took out a plum’. The Horner family resides there to this day.

Therefore

A close reading of the text of Nursery Rhymes alone reveals that they in fact speak of theft, assault, physical danger, anger, hurt and jealousy. Apart from internalizing history in a rather ‘timeless’ fashion, Nursery Rhymes are also larger than life examples of the evolution of the oral literary tradition into print culture, with the passage of time. Deeply rooted in a socio-cultural ethos which spans centuries and countries the world over, Nursery Rhymes are containers of history and evolution, passed down and ingrained in generations via a medium which ensures that they will never be forgotten.

I Want to be Giant

Pink kissed Blue and melted into breathtaking Silver. I like these dreams where palettes can do just about anything you want them to. Stand on tip-toe, peer over the edge of the window, stare at the sky. Blank. I can’t copy it. I’m such an awful singer and unless I’m pressed up really close against him, I suck as a dancer. But I love playing with colour. I like wrapping myself in rainbow scratched scarves. One hand on my hip, head tilted back in smouldering Cleopatra style. Sigh. I feel embarrassed when I chance upon a sad sunset now. Sometimes it feels impossibly far away. Everything. Grass dripping with dew. Just like the poets of old had said it would. Peek-a-boo sun and the dreams of a twenty-one year old. I dreamed of willowy legs and tried on pair after pair of black stilettos in vain. Cinderella. Frogs and Prince Charming. What was the story of the pumpkin? The rude little blue receiver screams out in indignation. I’d rather watch the rain on the window-sill. The last time I took that walk, it was much colder. No déjà-vu. Just the sadness which comes with knowing that you didn’t have to be here to know that it won’t happen. Hold me closer? I’m not quite sure whether I want to say that anymore. I want to wrap my arms around myself and that is where the problem starts. I love me and I hate me. I want to be another me. The one who said nothing at all. I want to be the jigsaw puzzle of memories in the room I am walking around. I want to be that smell. I want to be in your smile. I want to be little again. I want him back and I want to hold onto his hand and walk my tiny stumbling steps behind him. I want to be swung high up in the air. I want to be Giant.

P.S.

Hot coffee and blankets. I don't think we have ever really agreed on anything for too long. I am always right (and you really should see that!). I just see you break into that smile right now. If we could ever take time off from being silly, there are all these things I want to tell you about. You make me laugh like no one else does. You make me cry like no one else does. I am having the time of my life. I hate having to change. I want longer walks back in time. I wish you would stop being the strong one. I cry like a baby and sometimes, I think you should too. Remember the first flower you brought me? Time after time, plans dissolve. We laugh and tickle and laugh and laugh. You know when to look up and meet my eyes across an impossibly crowded room. You do. I watch. I try and learn. It isn't easy. I know that there will be all these times when we will both be biting back the tears. But there will also be the shared ice-creams and secrets. Bad movies and too much beer. I have my ways of bringing you back!

Err.. B-School

“Hold on to the now, the here, through which all future plunges into the past.” Sometimes, it feels like everything that I say to myself has already been said to me by Joyce. If you looked up ‘wide-eyed’ under a picture dictionary that day, you would have seen gaping-mouth-me there. This was Business School. All my Shakespeare-Woolf-Joyce spouting self managed was a small ‘gulp’. This was not my comfort zone, even though it hosted a library. Of the many moments when I had imagined what this would be like, I hadn’t counted on the nervousness. This was like going back to the first day at St. Stephen’s. That had become home. Would this place too? Was I really going to start calling all that I was looking at right now, mine? More importantly, were these shy half-smiles going to translate into nights of hysterical giggles and classes of shared bewilderment? The magic of any ‘space’ lies in its people. Because more intensely than the smell of the grass or the taste of the mess food (not to underestimate either), I feel the people. And I feel books. And I knew that change was inevitable because the touch was to change. My fingers would now leaf through shiny, brightly coloured Management texts and scurry across a black keyboard. Most of the pen and paper would take a back seat and I would (I want to) find new ways of realizing myself.

My room contains the same framed photographs and Bible that I have carried over the years. They bring an interesting old-new flavour to my ‘new’ life.

“What If” – On the things that hide under my pillow

What if I chose the path less traveled? Would it have made all the difference? The more I think now, the more confused I am. It upsets me every time I fill out one of those ‘One thing that you wish you had done differently’ questions. This was the ‘easier’ choice in many ways – the one that came without complications, the one that wouldn’t require the constant fight to be the best just because I wouldn’t settle for anything less and the one that would not mean focused passion. It would however, be the ‘stable’ one. I wonder if I have made a mistake. I thought that not feeling things intensely would be easier, but now it makes me feel a little false. I miss knowing that I can change everything oh so easily. I miss my alternate world in writing. Everything here is so concrete. And sometimes, everything is so devastatingly ‘right’. The scariest part is that this new place seems to be assessing me rather accurately. Better than I seem to be evaluating it.

Checklist: November, 2008

Learn to be happy with my lot, without plugging the dreams.

Finally read Ulysses to see how one day could be a lifetime.

Walk for longer; don’t cut down on the chocolate.

It will always be home over the money and that is a good thing.

Call Mama everyday and tell her that I love her.