The Prayer at “Lights Out” (Junior School)

The Junior School Foyer/lobby at night

(This is for those Old Nabhaites who did not get exposed to or have forgotten the  “Prayer at Lights Out’. It  was recited by all students in the 1960s in the Junior School, after supper and in night-suits, after brushing teeth and before going to sleep. The prayer was said in the common areas just before entering the House,  supervised by respective House masters/mistresses. It was probably Miss Row (Satluj) who taught it, in those days.  She stayed in School for a short span. She was an Anglo-Indian lady who married a local gentleman Mr. Gill. Her two daughters later studied in The PPS. It had been somehow forgotten and discontinued in School. When it appeared in The Eagle after a long time, Madam Meena Thapar, Head of Junior School, started it again as a routine. Don’t know the present status.- Jashanjot(S-52,1967) )

The prayer goes as follows:

Now I lay me down to sleep

May Angels guard my bed

And through the hours of darkness

They watch around our beds

Thank you for the food we eat

Thank you for the flowers so sweet

Thank you for the birds that sing

Thank you, God for everything

Now the darkness gathers

Stars begin to creep 

Birds and beasts and flowers

Soon begin to sleep

“Good Night everybody. That’s all I can remember.”

Dr. Vineet Mehta ( J-72,1967), Florida, USA, (who sent this prayer as he remembered)