Where the mind is without fear my views

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. - from Gitanjali, Offering of Songs, published in English in 1912, written by Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore. I want to share my views about the poem that was written by Rabindranath Tagore. He was born on 7 May 1861 in Calcutta. He became Asias first Nobel Laureate when he won the 1913 Nobel Prize in Literature. He died on 7 August 1941 in Calcutta. The poem is from Gitanjali, published in Bengali in 1910 and later translated as Gitanjali: Song Offerings, in English in 1912. It was not written for political independence but for freedom from parochialness and dogma. The poem is as relevant today as it was then. The poem is Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high Dear friends, On the background of terrorism that is spreading all over the world, this poem gives me a feeling of breeze of fresh air. It is a source of tremendous inspiration for me. The whole poem is a prayer of one sentence only. The poet is praying to God Let my country awake in that heaven of freedom. How is that heaven of freedom? Poet describes it asWhere 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 From these lines it is clear that poet is thinking about whole world without any fragments and not merely about the country. Today we talk about the whole world as a Global Village Without any Border or Barrier. This was reflected in a true sense in this poem. Dear friends, today we are celebrating the 60th anniversary of independence. After 60 years of independence have we really achieved the freedom? If we compare todays situation with the heaven described in the poem, the answer is plain No. OK! We are successful in solving many problems. We are on right track and heading in proper direction. But there is long way to go. We are far away from reaching the goal. In our todays world, there are many forms of evil forces. They are affecting our daily life. Terrorism is one of them. But it is just the tip of iceberg. Criminals are occupying the key posts in all the four pillars of our democracy namely the judiciary, legislature, executive and media. So, we are experiencing exactly opposite situation to that described in the poem. The whole world is broken up into fragments. Numbers of nations are fighting over the issues related to border, with neighboring nations. In such case only the thoughts given in the poem can bring the true harmony and piece in the world. Our Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh reflected the same in his recent quote Though borders cannot be changed, they could be made irrelevant!

The poet has further described the heaven as followsWhere 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 When I read these lines I was fascinated by the thoughts expressed in these lines. These thoughts guide us in all walks of life. The power of the poem is so overwhelming, that it creates the burning desire in our mind to bring that heaven on the earth. There is every reason to believe that if all of us start following these thoughts, one day that heaven of freedom will become the reality. Dear friends, all the seeds of good habits are sown in our mind during school time. I am proud of our school and teachers for that. In addition to this, I have a torch in my mind that is ignited by thoughts from this poem. And the beauty of this ignited torch is that it never loses any of its light by lighting another torch. In fact the intensity of the light gets multiplied. Dear friends, if the same thoughts from the poem start resonating into your mind also, we can say that similar torch is ignited in your mind. In one of the books our former President Dr APJ Abdul Kalam calls the individuals having such a burning desire as Ignited Minds. The title of that book itself is Ignited Minds. Let us ignite the torches into minds of all our friends. Tomorrow all the ignited minds like us will be entering in the real world. At that time, we have to excel in our chosen field. It may not be that easy to pursue the perfection every time. We will be confronted with towering challenges. And we will have to fight with never-say-die guts and diehard grit. Thanks to our Alma Maters for nurturing our minds to take the challenges head on. The only limit to our imaginationis the power of our mind! So let us enhance that power of our mind with right attitude. We must keep in mind that our attitude decides our altitude. So, be ready. We will have to play the pivotal role in near future. We will have to take actions by sticking to the Principle Centered Leadership. And the world will come to know that the future of our nation is not only safe, but is bright in the hands of the ignited minds of the young generation. And by following our example whole world will follow our footsteps and it will awake into that heaven of freedom I will end the talk with the end lines of the poemWhere the mind is led forward by thee Into ever-widening thought and action Into that heaven of freedom, my father, let my country awake. Many a times I discuss with friends about choosing the role models in todays world. All of us agree that neither bollywood stars nor Hollywood stars can be our role models. Not even Harry Potter that is Daniel Radcliffe would be our role model. The only reason is real life is different from reel life. Recently I have read the biography of American Industrialist George Wastinghouse. I was impressed with the methodology he followed to tackle the problems in industry. Another personality that influenced me deeply is George Washington Carver. In India there are many such individuals in different fields. JRD Tata was one such visionary from Indian industries. The work of Baba Amte also motivated me. So there are number of role models in India. You can choose them from the fields that interest you. Someone will choose Kiran Bedi as her role model. Someone may give Dr Abhay and Rani Bung as their first choice.

I have also learned one thing from these books. We should not spend hours and hours in watching the television or playing the computer games. We cannot achieve anything by doing it. So we have to avoid it or at least limit it to less than one hour per day.