Alphonse Daudet, a celebrated French writer and novelist, wrote a memorable short-story called The Last Lesson. It is a story of a young boy, Franz, in Alsace, France. Prussian soldiers have defeated the French and an order has come from Berlin to teach German in the schools of Alsace and Lorraine. The episode is narrated at the time of the Franco-Prussian Wars. The French schoolteacher, M. Hamel, is to leave the country and this is his last lesson. On being asked to recite the rule for participles Franz fumbles. M. Hamel says to the young boy:

"I won't scold you, little Franz; you must feel bad enough. See how it is! Every day we have said to ourselves. 'Bah! I've plenty of time. I'll learn it tomorrow.' And now you see where we've come out. Ah, that's the great trouble with Alsace; she puts off learning till tomorrow. Now, those fellows out there will have the right to say to you: 'How is it; you pretend to be Frenchmen, and yet you can neither speak nor write your own language?'"

Daudet writes: "Then, from one thing to another, M. Hamel went on to talk of the French language, saying that it was the most beautiful language in the world - the clearest, the most logical; that we must guard it among us and never forget it, because when a people are enslaved, as long as they hold on to their language it is as if they had the key to their prison."

Evidently the message Daudet conveys is that there is no point in calling oneself French if knowledge of the language is not there. Similarly there is no point in calling oneself Punjabi if the knowledge of the Punjabi language is missing. Going a step further can one call oneself Sikh is knowledge of Gurmukhi is missing? I would like to know.

Why not learn it? Some say it is difficult to learn a new language. I agree some languages are. I am surprised that there are people who live under the illusion that Sikhi is an easy path. Sikhi is a very difficult path. Guru Amar Das testifies to it:

Different from the world is the way of God's devotees-
Different the devotees' way, traversing a hard path.
Discarding covetousness, greed, pride, desire-
Restrained their utterances.
Sharper than dagger-point, finer than hair-breath
in the way they traverse.
Those that by the Master's Grace have egoism discarded,
Their desire into God is absorbed.
Sayeth Nanak: Age after age God's devotees tread way
from the world different - (SGGS, p.918)

Perhaps learning Gurmukhi is the easiest thing to do on this path. First we must settle the question whether learning Gurmukhi is essential.

I think it is.