No, this one is not about famous nursery rhymes!
I woke up this morning to the strains of a small voice singing "Copy cat, kill the rat, Sunday morning eat the rat". You know the one I'm referring to...the singsong, lilting one...
This 'innocuous' little song truly falls under the category of something that is not part of the curriculum in school or at home. I haven't been able to Google up a good explanation, yet, for the origin of this song. What makes it particularly interesting is the fact that while children learn quite a bit by imitating others, this one seems to be an Ode dead against this method of learning. Famous figures like Steve Jobs and Picasso have had many good things to say about the act of copying someone or something. After all, aren't most innovations mostly incremental? Go figure!
Another one that comes to mind is 'up the pole, down the pole, monkey choose the blackboard what color do you choose...’ as a means of making a choice. The phrase 'up the pole’, among other things, loosely translates to something along the lines of 'being in a difficult situation'. Guess the monkey bit refers to do with the young, restless mind(s) using this as an instrument for decision making. Decision making even for young uncluttered minds can definitely be a difficult proposition. How appropriate!
In any event, some of these really hit the nail on the head, while some appear to be more contradictory than they were probably meant to be by the original inventors and protagonists. Others fall into the category of 'does it really matter what it really means... Just go with it'. Never ceases to amaze me as to how many of these things live on from generation to generation through the power of word-of-mouth.
And with a little help of course these days, from my friend the digital medium...
Sadly, there are those that have gone the way of the Dodo such as 'Nila nila odi va' best visualized in the context of a 4 year old being treated to 'Nila Saapadu...' (Nila Tamil for moon, Odi Va come hither, Saapadu - mammum or food)
I woke up this morning to the strains of a small voice singing "Copy cat, kill the rat, Sunday morning eat the rat". You know the one I'm referring to...the singsong, lilting one...
This 'innocuous' little song truly falls under the category of something that is not part of the curriculum in school or at home. I haven't been able to Google up a good explanation, yet, for the origin of this song. What makes it particularly interesting is the fact that while children learn quite a bit by imitating others, this one seems to be an Ode dead against this method of learning. Famous figures like Steve Jobs and Picasso have had many good things to say about the act of copying someone or something. After all, aren't most innovations mostly incremental? Go figure!
Another one that comes to mind is 'up the pole, down the pole, monkey choose the blackboard what color do you choose...’ as a means of making a choice. The phrase 'up the pole’, among other things, loosely translates to something along the lines of 'being in a difficult situation'. Guess the monkey bit refers to do with the young, restless mind(s) using this as an instrument for decision making. Decision making even for young uncluttered minds can definitely be a difficult proposition. How appropriate!
In any event, some of these really hit the nail on the head, while some appear to be more contradictory than they were probably meant to be by the original inventors and protagonists. Others fall into the category of 'does it really matter what it really means... Just go with it'. Never ceases to amaze me as to how many of these things live on from generation to generation through the power of word-of-mouth.
And with a little help of course these days, from my friend the digital medium...
Sadly, there are those that have gone the way of the Dodo such as 'Nila nila odi va' best visualized in the context of a 4 year old being treated to 'Nila Saapadu...' (Nila Tamil for moon, Odi Va come hither, Saapadu - mammum or food)
Curious to know if you remember any others...
well done, what about the tamil ones? i love the aadu-maadum kolam kolam ammayar veedum kolam kolam, then the chundeli-chundeli kalyanam.
ReplyDeletewe must list all the old proverbs too.
Pradeep
Good one! Like we talked about, there's a veritable trove with some of the folks we know..
DeleteSrivats
Good one...
ReplyDeleteI studied in Tamil medium for the first few years. We used to sing songs that went on and on... Specifically, I remember going through the folk song, 'Mullu munaiyilE mooNu kuLam vettinEn, reNdu kuLam pAzhu, oNNulE thannIiyE ilai'...roughly translated "I dug three ponds at the tip of a thorn, two were useless and the third didn't have any water..."
Another one... when it used to drizzle during sunshine... Something that goes like. "Kakkavukkum Nariyukkum KalayNam" :)
Sridhar
good nuggets! another kakka one that comes to mind is the kakka kakka kannuko mai konduva..
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