SLEEP…BABY…SLEEP!

A woman needn’t be taught how to hold a baby… an instinct tells her what to do. There’s another thing all women do. Sing their babies to sleep. A woman may not claim to be musically accomplished… She may never dare to sing (even in bathrooms) but when she carries her baby in her arms and rocks him/her to sleep, she starts singing lullabies. No one teaches her before marriage or during confinement about how to sing her baby to sleep. Yet, she gets this magical power to mesmerize, soothe and comfort her baby.

There is something so magical and beautiful about these lullabies. The crankiest of babies will settle down to crooning. The most beautiful lullaby I have heard is one without any words. I heard it as a child when my Mom used to rock my baby brother or sister in their ‘dooli’ or ‘thooli’ cradle made by folding and tying an old cotton saree. The tying of the ‘dooli’ itself is an art…perfected by generations of grandmothers and mothers. I used to feel scared seeing the baby in the cloth cradle… What if the knots come undone? What if the baby crawls out ( heh…heh….paranoia about one’s infants is another legacy of mothers ) What if the baby falls out when people rock it to and fro? Mere fears… the baby oblivious to all my fears would be transported to the land of Somnolence thanks to the rhythmic movement and the soft crooning.

The simplest of these magical songs that calms a cranky and sleepy baby is a wordless humming. It is a monotonous series of humming… Every unit of humming has 4 parts to it. One for when you swing it away with the flick of the wrist, one for the inward flick which swings the baby towards the mother , the third when it swings away again and the fourth when it swings back.
The first humming ascends in tone, the second, descends, the third is like the the first and the fourth has a tone of finality… so it goes, mmmmmm- mmmmmm- mmmmmm- mmmm ! mmmmmm- mmmmmm- mmmmmm- mmmm ! mmmmmm- mmmmmm- mmmmmm- mmmm ! The ‘thooli’ swinging to and fro the soothing tone of the mother almost hynotising the baby to sleep.

There is a famous folklore in Malayalam about a king who was playing a chess game finds himself in a tricky position and the queen who sits behind the curtains sings and gives him a clue in the form of a lullaby… She sings ‘undundoo… undundoo… undundoo….undundoo….undundooo…undundoo… AaLe undu! Roughly translated it means “move your pawn”…

For the Malayalees all over the world the most popular lullaby is ‘Omana Thingal Kidaavo’ composed by Irayimman Thampi as a lullaby for the royal prince Swathi Thirunal… I read in a blog sometime back that in Tamil all the lullabies are addressed to boys and not girls… Well… never paid attention to that. I normally associate lullabies with infants or babies- terms which are not gender-bound or sexist. But come to think of it, a good many ( can any one think of any sung for a girl-baby specifically?) ones are religious in tone…

I have listened to English lullabies like “Sleep Baby Sleep” and “Hush Little Baby” but more with academic interest than with any intention of using them…

I love the Bollywood lullabies… They have such soothing effect on me… and calm me down… bring tears to the eyes and lumps to the throat…

Remember the priceless gems Hindi films have given us… Like “ Nanhi Kalee Sone Chalee Hawa Dheere Aana...”
“ Dheere se aajare akhiyan mein nindiya aajaare aaja”, “Mein gaoo thum so jao…” and more recent ones like “ Yashoda ka Nandlaala….” and “ Surmayi akhiyon mein nanha munna ek sapnaa dekha hai” …

A Telugu movie song starting “ Vadapatra Sai ki varahala lali” is a beautiful rendition. The Priya sisters sing a special trademark song “ Laalee” in their concerts which also clogs the throat and moistens the eyes whenever I listen… My husband used to sing Something in Kannada for my twins…” Jo…Jo… Balakrishna…which I could never learn because I feel moved when I hear it…

I love the old lullabies from Malayalam films like “ P. Susheela’s “Paattupaadi uRakkaam njyan thaamarappoompaidale” , “Omana thingalil onam pirakkumbol…”, Kannum Pootiyurangu ga neeyen” by P.Leela, “ Oonjalaa…OOonjala” , “ Omana thingal Pakshi”, malar Kodi pole… and Omanathingal Kidavo (S. Janaki in Ithiri Poove Chuvanna Poove)…

But in spite of knowing all these songs, I used to sing old Hindi filmy hits and some favourite Classical Carnatic songs to croon my babies to sleep. They used to listen to my rendition of “Karpagavalli nin porpadangal” , a long ragamalika and “Naanoru Vilayaattu Bommayaa”. At the end of both the songs, they will open an eye and say “Kappalli” and I’d start off again… It will go on and on till some days, I fall asleep… Otherwise it ued to be a long medley of songs starting with “Pyaar hua Ikraar Hua… Aaja sanam Madhur Chandini mein hum…. Yeh Raat bheegi Bheegi….Ramaya Vastaavayya… Dam Bhar jo udhar Moo … and go on to Devanand hits and then Dilip Kumar songs… all songs from old AL Mansoor Video Casettes we used to borrow from the club while living in an Indian Project Camp in Iraq… All …Dard Bhare Geet, Bhoole Bisre Geet and whatnot! But they needed songs to sleep… Now a days, they stuff the ear phones into their ears for falling asleep listen to noisy stuff which I can hardly comprehend or enjoy... but each to his own, I guess!

I thought humming and crooning to put your baby to sleep is passé. But surprisingly, I found RP’s cousin in UK ( with whom we stayed) who is the youngest of our generation was humming away gloriously…like only mothers can, while soothing her baby to sleep.

Some things will never change…
Thank God for that!