Wee Willie Winkie runs through the town
Upstairs and downstairs in his nightgown
Tapping at the window and crying through the lock
Are all the children in their beds? its past eight'o clock
Just to prove that I know my nursery rhymes really well. Be it the well-known ones like twinkle twinkle or baa baa black sheep, or the relatively obscure ones like Hot cross buns, 1-2 buckle my shoe, Little Miss Muffet, London Bridge is falling down and(whew!) Little Boy Blue I know them all. Believe you me, this is not the end of the list for I have not started with the Hindi rhymes.
Writing all this, I couldn’t refrain from singing out Little Miss Muffet and my sister was gaping at me with wonderment and amusement. From the next room my mother calls out, “Vasudha, do you remember that Hindi rhyme Morni (for my exclusively English followers that means Peacock)that you recited at your L.K.G rhyme competition?” Yeah, why not mom. My last semester at college went by with friends requesting rhymes. “ Vasudha please recite Billi Mausi”...” Hey how about Hickory Dickory Dock?” Remember the times when you went visiting aunts and uncles as a wee, lisping toddler and were asked to recite Humpty-Dumpty? And the “chooooo chweet”s and chocolates and cheek-pinching that followed? Wish I had that adulation (sans the cheek-pinching thank you!), I usually muster a few hearty laughs and some “You are unbelievable"s.
Just a few moments ago, when I recited Hot Cross Buns verse to verse while my sister stood dumbfounded after following me for one line, my mother gave me her I-don’t-know-whether-to-be-amused-or-proud stares. She has every right to her dilemma, after all it is to her that I owe my unique talent. If you have been thinking I am a genius with the most acute memory, you are going to be badly shaken. I repeated L.K.G. Thanks to my mother. She sent me packing to school at the tender age of three for commiting unspeakable crimes (I’ll speak of one anyway... I think that’s what drove her to it... I locked her up in a room and wouldn’t open till she said she wouldn’t beat me or scold me anymore). So there I was in school and the school-dunce. The story of the Thirsty Crow (remember the one in which the crow finds a pitcher with very little water, it can’t put its beak in to reach the water so it fills the pitcher with stones so the water comes up to beak-level), which I tell with such gusto now was Greek to little Tamil-only Vasudha. It was a tough time, and the results must have been appalling. So mother decided that I should repeat, after all strong basics are very necessary to any further education. I learnt all my nursery rhymes again and learnt them forever. “Your strong foundations have made you what you are today” declares my mother with evident pride whenever the topic comes up. I must own up that some of the pride is justified, beside being nursery-rhyme-knowledgeable at the ripe old age of twenty-three, I am also a poetess. Sample this:
Baa Baa Black sheep have you any wool?
I need it for my sister who thinks she’s too cool
Shoes bedazzled like earrings, Earrings shaped like ballet shoes
Gowns looking like bathrobes, and a well stacked soft toy zoo
I think wool would be perfect, to thaw her a peg or two.
