"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those, who falsely believe they are free"
~ Johan Wolfgang Von Goethe.
"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"
Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore
(1861 - 1941)
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Come one and all, my fellow countrymen and women, let us celebrate our freedom.
Why do you not celebrate with us on this Republic anniversary day of ours?
Let us sing and dance like all happy and free people.
Oh I see! You do not feel too happy or so optimistic.
Freedom, what freedom you ask?
Maybe you are right.
We have traded in imperialistic rulers to replace them with self serving dynastic and often criminal rulers. We lived in bondage under the Kings, Princes, Nawabs, British, Portuguese and French, now they have gone we like to believe we are free. But are we free? I think not.
The enslavement of the mind and spirit is greatly more reprehensible and sad than physical slavery. The physical slave is aware of his or her plight and either accepts or fights it.
The tragedy of the people whose minds and spirit are enslaved is that they are not aware that they have been enslaved. They take great pride in their slavery and even preach the same dogma of their former and current masters.
This tragedy the great Rabindranath Tagore ji foresaw and prayed to God that " …into that heaven of freedom, My father let my country awake"
A great future beckons us, all we have to do is believe in it. India can once again become a beacon of hope, health, prosperity and happiness for the entire world.
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"The Bard of Bengal",
Rabindranath Tagore ji (1861 – 1941) reshaped Bengali literature and music, as well as Indian art.
Author of 'Gitanjali' he became the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913. Tagore's poetry was viewed as spiritual and mercurial; his "elegant prose and magical poetry" had a profound impact not only on Bengalis but on the world.
His compositions were chosen by two nations as national anthems: India's Jana Gana Mana and Bangladesh's Amar Shonar Bangla. The Sri Lanka's National Anthem was inspired by his work.
