Saturday, February 14, 2009

We re-enacted Indian Independence movement

... on ICAB Republic Day

By Arjun L.

'On February 7, 2009 my religious class from the Temple participated in the ICAB Republic Day Function.  We sang Vande Mataram.  This is the national song of India, and the English translation of it is - bow to thee mother.  Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay composed Vande Mataram in a mixture of Bengali and Sanskrit.  It was first sung in 1896 in a session of the Indian National Congress.  In 2003, BBC did a poll to choose the 10 top favorite songs and Vande Mataram was second. 

Our class also dressed up as freedom fighters. I was Maulana Azad. Maulana Azad was born on November 11, 1888. He was a Muslim scholar and an important leader in the Indian Independence movement. All my classmates quoted a famous quote of our leaders. Maulana Azad's quote was “I will renounce Swaraj as long as Hindu Muslim unity is renounced, because if Swaraj is delayed it is a loss to India, but if Hindu Muslim unity is lost it is a loss to humanity." My costume was a black sherwani, a hat, mustache, beard and glasses.

The other leaders we chose were Mahatma Gandhi (Ankit Bansal), Jawaharlal Lal Nehru (Pranav Mehta), Gangadhar Tilak (Ishant Yadav), Maulana Azad (Arjun Lakhanpal), Subhash Chandra Bose (Atreya Verma), Bhagat Singh (Rohan Nair), Sardar Patel (Yash Mishra) and Mother India (Amrita Lakhanpal). It was real fun and was a great learning experience.' Tilak,Subhash Chandra Bose,Maulana Azad and Bhagat Singh