Verse of the day

Commenting on this post, Ramesh writes:

Where there is a sensible discussion on policy;
Where you can debate without having to yell;
Where differences are respected instead of ridiculed;
Where extremism is shunned and moderate does not equal to a wimp;
Where long term is feted and short term is only an aid to the long term;
Where the country comes before political office;

Into that utopian land of democracy, may our countries awake some day.

 Indeed!

Readers of this blog don't need reminders on what Ramesh echoes: Ranbindranath Tagore's poem, Where the mind is without fear:

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.

Maybe poetry, or Radindra Sangeet, is what is needed as therapy!

Poem of the day: on India's Independence Day

I might as well make a thematic third for today, after this post and this

The following poem by Rabindranath Tagore was a required reading back in high school.  I would expect that to be the same even now.  (Note: this poem was not written by Tagore to commemorate the independence.  He died in 1941--six years before the British handed over the keys.)

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.