I am not much into politics, never had strong feelings about any major political party, and I don't really have anything more to write on Mr. Narendra Modi beyond what is already said and shared on social media in the past 24 hours. The verdict's out, BJP's Mr. Modi is the winner, and the winner is the king. Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar. I congratulate him and his party and wish him well. Hope he goes and does something good for our nation of 1.2B people.
Mr. Modi is not who I want to write about today. I actually want to write about my school, Saraswathi Vidya Mandir, where I studied my 5th through 10th grade. Our school is the Hindu equivalent of a typical catholic school. We wore saffron and white, the colors of BJP, due to the school's strong affiliation with BJP and VHP. Our morning always started with Goddess Saraswathi (Goddess of Education) prayer in the open ground. We all sat down on the ground for prayer, barefoot. We took off shoes when we arrived at school, lined them up along the back wall of the ground and wore them back only at the end of the day. The prayer leader would say "Saavadhan" (Sanskrit for alert) and the prayer* would commence. The prayer singer (typically my sister) sang the lines and we all repeated after her in chorus, so loud that one could hear it from the street. My father walked by the school around prayer time whenever he could just so he could listen in- he really loves the religious songs and of course he is a proud father, there's that too! The leader would say "Swastha" (Sanskrit for relax) and we would then move on to school news and other announcements before being dismissed for classes. At lunch time, we sat along the corridors in a straight line, recited another prayer (Bhojana Mantram) before we ate. In the evening, before dispersing for the day, same deal. Another prayer (Shanti Mantram). There were subtle Hindu rituals sprinkled throughout the day: we all sat up and said "Namaste Aacharyaji" every time a teacher walked into our classroom, meditated between the Saavadhan and Swastha commands, participated in Yoga and Sun Salutations, played yogchap and kolatam (sticks-based dance) to patriotic songs*. We sang some hilarious folk songs* too.
All this seemed a bit overwhelming in the beginning, since I studied in a Christian school for three years just before moving to this one. But soon I got a hang of things and memorized all those verses and prayers, yay for forced repetitions! Just when I thought it was all smooth sailing, there was a sudden meeting all hands on deck at school. VHP and it's affiliates decided to reconstruct the Lord Rama temple in Ayodhya (in Uttar Pradesh State, North India) where Babri Masjid stood. Our role was to supply bricks for this construction, and do special prayers to those bricks prior to shipping them to the North. Most of the school students, teachers and support staff instantly turned into campaign mode, collecting donations, singing songs in praise of Lord Rama*, and mouthing slogans such as "Gali Gali mein Shor Hai, VP Singh Chor Hai" (word on the street is that VP Singh is a thief). I had absolutely no idea who VP Singh was at the time. We went on a Shobha Yatra and a Ratha Yatra, following trucks loaded with the sacred bricks along the streets. It was very confusing and extremely exhausting for me to go through with all these additional rituals on top of the usual for a cause I didn't understand at the time. In hind sight, I realize one utility of these endeavors- my memory sharpened quite well. It is actually quite shocking that just in the 15min I spent thinking about all those songs today, I remembered five of them! I was a serious BJP activist at age 11 and I only just realized that!
Amidst all these high voltage activities, if there was anything that came as a breath of fresh air, it was our Hindi teacher, Mrs. R. Lakshmi. She was the most removed from any of the politics (school level or national level). She walked into the class room, talked in Hindi the whole time, and taught us how to read and write Hindi, in the simplest and easiest of ways. One exercise she often had us do was copy writing -with a twist. She let us choose one sentence- usually a proverb, write it in each line of one page in a double-ruled book. I really enjoyed this activity for some inexplicable reason. Apparently, my BFF, Preethy, too shared a similar sentiment for this activity. Her handwriting was immaculate and that fact was acknowledged by R. Lakshmi teacher herself one day. And then, she went on to add, (in Hindi), but we should not really be choosing movie titles in copy writing. Preethy chose "Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar" that day.
That title is so appropriate for India today. Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar. Mr. Modi won. He is going to be the Prime Minister.
Mr. Modi is not who I want to write about today. I actually want to write about my school, Saraswathi Vidya Mandir, where I studied my 5th through 10th grade. Our school is the Hindu equivalent of a typical catholic school. We wore saffron and white, the colors of BJP, due to the school's strong affiliation with BJP and VHP. Our morning always started with Goddess Saraswathi (Goddess of Education) prayer in the open ground. We all sat down on the ground for prayer, barefoot. We took off shoes when we arrived at school, lined them up along the back wall of the ground and wore them back only at the end of the day. The prayer leader would say "Saavadhan" (Sanskrit for alert) and the prayer* would commence. The prayer singer (typically my sister) sang the lines and we all repeated after her in chorus, so loud that one could hear it from the street. My father walked by the school around prayer time whenever he could just so he could listen in- he really loves the religious songs and of course he is a proud father, there's that too! The leader would say "Swastha" (Sanskrit for relax) and we would then move on to school news and other announcements before being dismissed for classes. At lunch time, we sat along the corridors in a straight line, recited another prayer (Bhojana Mantram) before we ate. In the evening, before dispersing for the day, same deal. Another prayer (Shanti Mantram). There were subtle Hindu rituals sprinkled throughout the day: we all sat up and said "Namaste Aacharyaji" every time a teacher walked into our classroom, meditated between the Saavadhan and Swastha commands, participated in Yoga and Sun Salutations, played yogchap and kolatam (sticks-based dance) to patriotic songs*. We sang some hilarious folk songs* too.
All this seemed a bit overwhelming in the beginning, since I studied in a Christian school for three years just before moving to this one. But soon I got a hang of things and memorized all those verses and prayers, yay for forced repetitions! Just when I thought it was all smooth sailing, there was a sudden meeting all hands on deck at school. VHP and it's affiliates decided to reconstruct the Lord Rama temple in Ayodhya (in Uttar Pradesh State, North India) where Babri Masjid stood. Our role was to supply bricks for this construction, and do special prayers to those bricks prior to shipping them to the North. Most of the school students, teachers and support staff instantly turned into campaign mode, collecting donations, singing songs in praise of Lord Rama*, and mouthing slogans such as "Gali Gali mein Shor Hai, VP Singh Chor Hai" (word on the street is that VP Singh is a thief). I had absolutely no idea who VP Singh was at the time. We went on a Shobha Yatra and a Ratha Yatra, following trucks loaded with the sacred bricks along the streets. It was very confusing and extremely exhausting for me to go through with all these additional rituals on top of the usual for a cause I didn't understand at the time. In hind sight, I realize one utility of these endeavors- my memory sharpened quite well. It is actually quite shocking that just in the 15min I spent thinking about all those songs today, I remembered five of them! I was a serious BJP activist at age 11 and I only just realized that!
Amidst all these high voltage activities, if there was anything that came as a breath of fresh air, it was our Hindi teacher, Mrs. R. Lakshmi. She was the most removed from any of the politics (school level or national level). She walked into the class room, talked in Hindi the whole time, and taught us how to read and write Hindi, in the simplest and easiest of ways. One exercise she often had us do was copy writing -with a twist. She let us choose one sentence- usually a proverb, write it in each line of one page in a double-ruled book. I really enjoyed this activity for some inexplicable reason. Apparently, my BFF, Preethy, too shared a similar sentiment for this activity. Her handwriting was immaculate and that fact was acknowledged by R. Lakshmi teacher herself one day. And then, she went on to add, (in Hindi), but we should not really be choosing movie titles in copy writing. Preethy chose "Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar" that day.
That title is so appropriate for India today. Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar. Mr. Modi won. He is going to be the Prime Minister.
Our recent trip to Preethy must have rubbed off. Raaga chose Frozen song to practice her writing skills!
*: Click at your own risk :). I put the links of my singing up there just so I don't have to type the Hindi and Telugu lyrics here. And I really wanted to share those titles with all my school friends!
Thanks Jyothy for taking me back to 20 years! I certainly don't remember our hindi class activity ( was there any conspiracy behind all the memory prizes that I won back then? :) but I sure remember rest of our rituals. One teacher I can't thank enough for our strong hindi skills is Mrs.R.Lakshmi.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I said prayer every day( for 10 years) when we were at school, I was still successful in forgetting that here and there ( which I didn't like of course). Thanks for making me remember that prayer again. It was a great trip, plan on moving here!
By the way, there is no link up there. I sure want to keep in touch with all good that we learned back at school. Apart from the fact that we were used as a student weapon for BJP, we learned lots of good stuff. Enforcing Sadacharam and Sanskrit classes was something that only our school could do :)
There surely is a lot of good we retained from school! I love singing our prayer too- I still sing that at Raaga's bedtime sometimes. One of these days we should reenact Bhuvana Vijayam! I still remember my verses! Maybe I should put those on YouTube too!
ReplyDeleteThe links don't work? I tried just now and they seem to be working fine. Click on the words preceding the asterisk- there are as many as four videos!