Easy to remember

There’s a very famous nursery rhyme aimed at teaching counting to tiny tots. It recently got refreshed in my memory when my daughter was reciting it to her younger baby. The rhyme reads as under:

One, two, Buckle my shoe;
Three, four, Shut the door;
Five, six, Pick up sticks;
Seven, eight, Lay them straight:
Nine, ten, A big fat hen;
Eleven, twelve, Dig and delve;
Thirteen, fourteen, Maids a-courting;
Fifteen, sixteen, Maids in the kitchen;
Seventeen, eighteen, Maids in waiting
Nineteen, twenty, My plate’s empty

Actually, in our childhood, we leant it up to nine ten a big fat hen , but the Wikipedia tells me that it runs upto twenty, that means ten rhyming stanzas.

Have we ever thought about the simplicity and mellifluousness of these rhymes that make them so easy to sing and remember. And their rhyming nature makes it convenient for the singer to substitute a word in the event of the original being forgotten. For example, we read three, four shut the door while the Wikipedia says knock at the door!

The idea of this blog germinated from my regular source of information that’s the thought of the day outside the billboard of Mahim church. The latest thought there read as , “ Don’t despair, try prayer.”. Taking a cue from this, I extrapolated this into a complete rhyme on the lines of the above nursery rhyme. It reads:

Don’t despair, try prayer;
Think high, reach the sky;
Control greed, fulfil need;
Plant tree, be pollution free;
Eat healthy , remain wealthy;
Uproot malice, drink from chalice;
Love neighbours, for god’s favour;
Be fair, take care;
Good deeds, humanity needs;
Clean your mind, god is kind.