"Right hand forward for the pledge"
Author :
Zena Yarde
Blog :ZenOspHere!
Date: 7/23/2012 5:46:00 PM
"India is my country and all Indians are my brothers and sisters.
I love my country and I am proud of its rich and varied heritage.
I shall always strive to be worthy of it.
I shall give my parents, teachers and all elders respect and treat everyone with courtesy.
To my country and my people, I pledge my devotion. In their well being and prosperity alone, lies my happiness."
"Please put your right hand forward for the pledge"
Uff!! Hand Ache!
We used to say to this announcement on the P.A system. Followed by us trying to beat each others arms out of the way and then laughing when some of the students used to interject, "all Indians except one are my Brothers and Sisters". The National Pledge of India is said everyday before the start of school and students always find new ways to make it interesting by interjecting various phrases and tweaking the words a little. We used to do the same when we were little. Students are typically made to repeat the pledge as one student reads it out from a text book, and you may find students having difficulty recalling it .
I recently was witness to this again, the scenario is the same, some poorly trained kid comes and almost screams the pledge out on the mike and the whole school repeats the words as well as mimics the sing song voice in which it is said.
However this time, hearing the pledge after 6years (We never said it in college), I reflected on the words. I was really impressed! It really is a well worded pledge. Sadly even after making the pledge for every single school day for 10 years, it is so easily forgotten. Maybe the sheer number of times we have said it caused us to forget, no one brought to our attention the meaning of the pledge and in retrospect we saw very few people living it out.
It is great to make the pledge to be proud of one's country, to promise to treat its people with respect, to pledge one's devotion to it and letting one's happiness lie in the progress and prosperity of one's country...
I am no one to comment about how much each one of us actually lives by this pledge we make before the start of every single school day for 10 years. Nonetheless it remains very well thought out, well articulated bunch of words that we (myself included) so easily forget.