Did Humpty Dumpty Really Fall Off a Wall?

Alright kids lets go way back to our school days.. no not the days of high school and middle school. Most people if you asked them would say that they had the most fun when they were in high school or middle school. Pfft.. so cliched. I want to take you way back to the days when you were just starting school. I'm talking about the period from Kindergarten to Class 2 or 3 - The most important time of our lives. This is where we first learnt the three R's - Reading, Writing and Arithmetic. (technically that should be "where we first learnt R,W and A.. confused the hell out of me when I was a kid but the key is in how you pronounce the words! I can see some of you now finally understand why they were called the Three R's)

For today's lesson we will be concentrating on Reading only. I'd want your rapt attention and pin drop silence. Reading first consisted of learning to read the Alphabets and numbers. Yeah the famous Alphabet song. Easiest lyrics ever! Lets skip a few chapters and proceed to the main part - Nursery Rhymes. I always loved reciting nursery rhymes. I probably have this hidden talent as a poet in me but I nowadays produce poems which are often laughed at.

For me the saddest nursery rhyme goes like this -

Rock-a-bye-baby On the treetop
When the wind blows,
The cradle will rock.
When the bough breaks,
The cradle will fall
And down will come baby
Cradle and all

I used to feel so sad for the poor little baby who fell from the tree. I used to think to myself "Oh Why did that bough break?" . I remember asking my mother if the baby died or not. Till date I have not been told the answer. Hope that baby lived or else I'll go into depression. Here is a picture which I've always had in my head about the little baby:

Enough of tragedy in nursery rhymes? No actually not - we're now going to have a look at Poor Little Humpty Dumpty who all the king's men couldn't put together again. You're thinking.."oh cute little rhyme" but like most nursery rhymes this one too has a bit of history attached to it. This website Indianchild.com tells us that Humpty Dumpty was actually the nickname of a cannon placed atop a church in England which subsequently fell down when the church was attacked during a battle. The English people liked the cannon so much they composed a rhyme in remembrance and it trickled down into our text books.

Another nursery rhyme associated with something more tragic than a stupid olde cannon is the also widely known -

Ring-a-Ring o'Rosies
A Pocket full of Posies
"A-tishoo! A-tishoo!"
We all fall Down!

This cute little rhyme is one associated with the Bubonic plague which.. er.. plagued Europe back in the olde days. The symptoms of this plague included a rosy red rash on the skin and violent sneezing and then people would fall sick and die. Try teaching that to the kids now!

Depressing stuff I know but brace yourselves for more depression - Baa Baa Black Sheep? Yep this too was not about some poor little black sheep and a boy. It was apparently about taxation where you were supposed to give a lot of your money in taxes to the king of England or something like that. Twinkle Twinkle Little Star? Apparently back in the middle ages the sun came so close to the earth that the earth evaporated into nothingness and the only surviving man who happened to be on the moon at that time wrote this rhyme. I didn't make that up. It really happened.

Anyhow my clock has now struck one and my mouse has now run up the clock and I gotta run. If that statement vaguely reminds you of a nursery rhyme then you can all give yourselves a pat on the back.

(Quick Note - Someone asked in a previous post about the meaning of the title of my blog - Angel Dust and Bones : Angel Dust is the name of an album put out by one of my favourite rock bands - Faith No More; Dust n' Bones is the name of a Guns n' Roses song. Angel Dust is also the code name for a hallucinatory drug called PCP... and no PCP is not one of my favourite drugs . I hallucinate enough already without drugs.