Friday, July 14, 2006

A Reminder: Gitanjali- Rabindranath Tagore

The plaintiffness of Tagore, almost a century old, has not lost its meaning. Have we gained nothing or is there nothing to gain?

from Gitanjali
by Rabindranath Tagore

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 lead forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action—
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

For those of us sitting so far away these words of tagore are very touching..and also frustrating coz just being indian is not what it is all about..feeling it so essential and living it even more..thank god you guys are all fine..luv..keep the faith

Anonymous said...

And keep dreaming..for another century

Anonymous said...

You know all of us have such noble thoughts about our country and what and where we would like to see it, but somehow it never gets to be real..I have been out of town, but getting back was so necessary..I almost fely guilty for being away

der Bergwind said...

hi... my computer got bombed!! n so was hospitalised for two dayz n after much surgery is now blinking:) tat too on the life support system of win98!!

woodz n treez analogy was nice:)
i got ur point n even agree to it... but we have always shown greater strength of purpose n still stand to lose.. why?

strength shud be in showing what we stand for also...
our intel failed n our systemz r all moth eaten but india n us cant be compared naa.. we have zillionz of distributaries on all possible accountz... to monitor such a system we need lots of financial as well as technical support systems... am not pseudo-secular but then why it is the 'greens' who always paint the town red!!

btw... tatz a lovely tagore poem n aptly brought up:) i just remembered the tag line of this week.. spread cheer..

why is life always derailed from the notion we attach to it? n why is it tat " what we get, is what we get by mistake... and what we want, we do not.." ( another one of tagore's.. i tried to translate:) )

Kaveetaa Kaul said...

db,

that was heartfelt..you an Indian alright:)

Anonymous,

Out of great dreams emerge greater realities.. heard of this one? Doubt it.. coz i just coined it:)

Neha,
welcome back and thanks for your emails.

der,

guess your comp was mourning too:)

Imo, India has followed a very fair foreign policy. WE have stood by our stand and caring a damn for cynics, let me say that it has stood us in good stead. The respect we command is undoubtedly evident in how the world at large has condemned the attack. What we have faltered on undeniably is weak intelligence.. Our own people have let us down. It has little do do with our aggressiveness or perceived lack of it.. We are paying for the calibre of political henchmen we have elected to power!!

silbil said...

though paash and tagore seem very different, i can't help posting lines of a poem that i have always been in awe of:

SAB SE KHATARNAK WOH CHAAND HOTA HAI,
JO HAR HATYAKAAND KE BAAD,
VEERAAN HUE AANGANO MEIN CHADHTA HAI,
PAR AAP KI AANKHON MEIN MIRCHON KI TARAH NAHIN GADHTA HAI.

the whole poem (though an english translation) can be read here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pash