A
lullaby is a song that is sung to put a child to sleep .It is also known
as the
Cradle song , when along with singing , the cradle in which the child is
lying is moved gently forward and backward . The English poem “ The Lullaby ” by W.H. Auden is however
cast in a different mould as the poet on
looking at his lover, who is already
asleep , indulges in some philosophical
thinking and the poem, simply is an expression of his philosophical
thoughts, which in my humble opinion hardly justifies the
title .
There are lullabies in every known language or
dialect of the world as the need to sing these in order to put young ones to
sleep is a universal one. Hindi films
have a lot of lullabies or lori songs, out of which two instantly come to
mind. One is – Dheere se aa ja ri akhiyan mein , nindiya aa ja ri aa ja
from the film Albela and the other – Chandan ka Palna , resham ki dori ; jhoola
jhulaoon nindiya ko tori from the film Shabaab .In my view both have the potential
to serve the purpose. I can
safely vouch for the first one , which I have sung nth
number of times to put my kids to sleep when they were growing
up. Another song- Ek tha Gul aur ek thi bulbul , dono chaman mein rehte they
– from the movie Jab Jab Phool Khiley- that I used to sing was not a lullaby but a composition of long duration - some 6-7
minutes - which was enough to put them to sleep, more so since I cannot lay any claim
to being a singer of any merit. . Surprisingly, my kids
asked me to sing this one more
often. I often wonder, what is there in a lullaby, that makes one
fall asleep , whether it is the lyrics, which invariably contain the words neend or
nindiya , sapna (dream) or their
equivalents in other languages or the
lilting tune the lyrics are set to , the gentle
forward & backward movement
of the cradle or the gentle thumping of
the chest called thapki .
