Tuesday, May 09, 2006

Tagore's Birth Anniversary

Today is Rabindranath Tagore's birth anniversary. He remains one of Modern India's greatest thinkers. A poet, educator, romantic, spiritualist and a seeker, may Tagore's thoughts and words be an inspiration not only for generations of Indians but for people the world over.

Below is an excerpt of Tagore's dream for India but I would take it to be for the world at large. In today's age of restricted thinking, rote education and commercialism, his words are a reminder for us to keep believing in all that is good.

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 of 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.

And here is another spiritual couplet from Gitanjali, Tagore's monumental work on devotion and love...

"When one knows Thee, then alien there is none, then no door is shut. Oh, grant me my prayer that I may never lose touch of the One in the play of the many."

What a thought!

3 comments:

Queenmatrai said...

Hey my God that took me back to my childhood - I used to say that at morning assembly in school every single day

WOW

Thanks for that memory

noojes

Alexys Fairfield said...

Tagore was certainly a tremendous force in literature as well as being a knight and a Nobel prize winner in 1913.

His word express such beauty, grace and wisdom that reading them still gives me goosebumps.

I even quote him in my post on blind faith.

I will leave you with one of my favorites by Tagore; "Let your life lightly dance on the edges of Time like dew on the tip of a leaf."

Again, good choice.

Ajeya said...

noojes... really? that's amazing! i don't remember saying it at assembly :( but it's a great way to start the day for sure.

alexys... thanks for the quote :) and yes, Tagore's works are timeless.