“London Bridge is down” and the many rhymes over time

Kolkata: When Queen Elizabeth the Second departed gracefully at the ripe young age of 96, the operative code word was ‘London Bridge is down’. It set in process a series of stately actions that would pave the way for Prince Charles to finally graduate at the ripe old age of 73. 

This is actually a fine time to look back at how innocent rhymes have been potent codes for deeply serious statecraft, from military moves to superhuman achievements to the facilitation of necessary memory. It possibly harks back to the simplicity and universality in comprehension that words in rhythm effortlessly provoke, and thus become lovable camouflage for matters most dire and significant, just like the passing of the monarch. History is filled with such notable instances and most certainly, the future will not be immune to their intriguing quality, dramatic and memorable. 

When Lord Archibald Wavell arrived in India to assume the onerous duties of Viceroy, he was confronted by a major memory challenge, namely the identification of the premium princely states which had earned the 21 Gun salute. So in typical English flair, understated yet eclectic, he coined the phrase ‘Hot Kippers Make Good Breakfast’. In case you are perplexed, H stood for Hyderabad, K for Kashmir, M for Mysore, G for Gwalior and B for Baroda, acting in merry tandem. This ensured that Mountbatten’s predecessor was never confused and a lovely bit of rhyming ensured diligent adherence to protocols. 

But, an even more delightful case of creative announcements was performed, as per defensible urban legend, by General Charles William Napier, when he annexed the province of Sind in 1842, courtesy the Battle of Miani. He had lovingly gone beyond the brief, converting a subjugation mandate to annexation, and sent a cryptic message to his bosses after victory, which simply said ‘ Peccavi’, Latin for ‘ I have sinned’. Thus this inspired spell of punnery spiritually merged ‘Sind’ and ‘sinned’, adding a softer sheen to what was a considerable military tussle. 

Even when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first earthly humans to set foot on the moon, they chose a dramatic play of words, not a boring declaration of arrival. ‘The Eagle has Landed’ was the code word to denote the success of the Apollo II mission, and I do not quite know the existence of a failure parallel.  

Perhaps the closest reference is to the Charge of the Light Brigade, in the Battle of Balaklava of the Crimean War, where a rival Army-man chose to describe the ill-advised valour as ‘It’s magnificent but it’s not war’, the French original even more sensational and dramatic.

But closer home, can we ever forget the passionate percussion of ‘Yeh Dil Maange More’, the war cry of Captain Vikram Batra upon conquering the peak? It captured the imagination of multiple generations, and its raw and innocuous verse actually enhanced the drama of those spine-chilling moments, of fine heroism that is an inspiration across walks of living. Truthfully, this too was a point-in-time success code, but equally accurately, it represented the ambitions of a nation livid with a deceitful foe. 

Those familiar with the work of Alan Turing, the code breaker of the German masterpiece ‘ Enigma’, as depicted in the engrossing Hollywood flick ‘The Imitation Game’, would also be alive to the intuitively deceptive acumen of rhymes. As to how simple words crafted in merry melody would be indicators of chilling peril and a fine example of this is ‘Tora Tora Tora’, the code used by Captain Mitsuo Fuchida to signal the onslaught on Pearl Harbour in 1941. Tora means tiger in Japanese but when applied as a trio, it does connote ‘Lightning Attack’, which it well and truly was, and the cinematic interpretations are indeed fine points of reference. 

As England prepares for a brisk ten-day sequence of events to welcome the new King, the attention will occasionally rest on the calm coding of ‘London Bridge is down’, to connote an occurrence after almost seventy tumultuous years where so much changed in our cognitive universe. But then that is the beauty of rhyme and rhythm, to convey firmly and appropriately without forgoing a dash of charm and character.