 Versions of this song comprising more than one verse usually continue with variations on this theme.A 1989 book by the American scholar and professor Jessica Wilson states that the nursery rhyme originated in Kenya.According to Vinoth Chandar, the CEO of ChuChu TV, it was already old enough to have been in the public domain in India by 2018, indicating that it would have been at least 60 years old (per Indian copyright law); Chandar wrote in 2018 that he "used to hear it" as a child, and that elderly people would also have listened to it as children.