The flavour of the month of August seems to be Freedom. Independence Day has just gone by. Against a backdrop of scams and corruption, an old man is igniting the spirit of patriotism among all Indians with his sheer courage and determination, not to mention debates and protests. In this scenario, a poem has been floating around in my mind. Everyone who studied in Indian schools must have come across this poem – and probably learnt it by-heart to write it out word-perfect in the exams or recite it on stage vociferously. Today, Tagore’s words seem as apt as they must have been all those years ago when he initially penned it. There are loads of things to complain about India. And yet reading these lines, brings forth a strange mix of longing, love and hope for the prosperity of my beloved motherland. It would be blasphemous to imagine my writing to be anywhere close to Tagore’s. So for my wish this Wednesday, I humbly echo his supreme words.
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
-- Rabindranath Tagore
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Amen to that :).
ReplyDeleteI feel like I'm in Church now ;-)
ReplyDelete@Ash: Nice!
ReplyDelete