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Monday, 27 May 2013

Infantile Melancholia


Infantile Melancholia

 

I remember learning Nursery Rhymes in School and I am sure most of you do too. “How many Nursery Rhymes do you remember?” I was asked by some friends a few days ago.

We racked our brains and surprisingly came up with quite a few. As the conversation progressed and we reminisced, we came to a unanimous conclusion. Most Nursery Rhymes in general, are sad, depressing and at times even sadistic!

Okay, don’t believe me – read on.

“Piggy on the railway track picking up stones / Down came an engine and broke piggy’s bones (Ouch!). Ah! said piggy – that’s not fair. Now, please listen to the reply of the engine driver, “I don’t care.” Isn’t that a callous reply?

Next came good old Humpty Dumpty who ‘had a great fall’. He obviously was smashed to smithereens because ‘all the kings horses and all the kings men could not put Humpty Dumpty together again’, and there must have been a mess on the pavement. If that was not a sad end, what is?

Poor Little Miss Muffet suffered a trauma of another variety. She was frightened out of her wits by a large and ugly spider and obviously was unable to finish her ‘curds and whey’ which she had just begun to relish.

Who hasn’t heard of Old Mother Hubbard. She was a kind soul and an animal lover too. However, when she went to fetch her dog a bone, the cupboard was bare and the poor little dog had to go to sleep hungry.

Little Jack Horner was definitely a shy and lonely lad. How else do you account for the fact that he was sitting all alone in a corner, eating his Christmas pie with his fingers and talking to himself. Depressing to say the very least.

Jack and Jill were rather unfortunate too. The good little children went up the hill to fetch a pail of water. As luck would have it, Jack fell down and broke his crown and Jill came tumbling after. She probably broke her crown too.

What about the three blind mice who ran after the farmer’s wife. The sadistic woman cut off their tails with a ‘carving knife’. From then on, it couldn’t have been much fun for the three little mice being both blind and tailless.

I’ve saved the worst for the last.

“Rock a bye baby on the tree top / When the wind blows, the cradle will rock / When the bough breaks the cradle will fall/ and down will come baby, cradle and all”. Now that would be a very careless mother indeed! Who, in her right frame of mind would put a baby, in a cradle on a tree top, and that too, on a windy day? Poor, poor kid!

 

1 comment:

Bala Sadasivan said...

Not to forget the "Ring a ring a roses" which actually talked about the deadly plague disease and I didn't realize that till I became a teacher .