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 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.
- Rabindranath Tagore
As we in India embark on our 63rd year of independence I wonder if we are truly independent….
Independent from corruption, independent from terrorism, independent from tyranny from small time thugs, independent from our fellow human beings who don’t seem to want to have anything to do with you…
We may be independent such that we have no other country ruling us – but are we independent of the so called leaders that we have running the country today?
I am proud to be an Indian, free from the rule of another, free to make my own decisions, free to live the way I want…. But there are aspects of this independent India that hit me and make me wonder what went wrong with us and why?
Why do the same free Indians want to make an extra buck during the Commonwealth games? We have gathered media attention for sure but for all the wrong reasons.
Why do we have to keep one of our most beautiful states under curfew day after day due to violence in the valley? Why can’t we diffuse the internal terrorism in the north and the east? Has human life lost its value? Aren’t we still under someone else’s rule?
Coming nearer to home we are kept hostage by our fellow humans be it the force that believes that Maharashtra can only have people who are only Maharashtrians; or be it the regular men in khaki who refuse to drive you to your chosen destination – so much so that we had to go on a “strike” against them?
So as we embark on our 63rd year of Independence I would like independence from corruption, from terrorism… May I ask for my fellow Indians to work towards a truly Independent India?
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by 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.
- Rabindranath Tagore
As we in India embark on our 63rd year of independence I wonder if we are truly independent….
Independent from corruption, independent from terrorism, independent from tyranny from small time thugs, independent from our fellow human beings who don’t seem to want to have anything to do with you…
We may be independent such that we have no other country ruling us – but are we independent of the so called leaders that we have running the country today?
I am proud to be an Indian, free from the rule of another, free to make my own decisions, free to live the way I want…. But there are aspects of this independent India that hit me and make me wonder what went wrong with us and why?
Why do the same free Indians want to make an extra buck during the Commonwealth games? We have gathered media attention for sure but for all the wrong reasons.
Why do we have to keep one of our most beautiful states under curfew day after day due to violence in the valley? Why can’t we diffuse the internal terrorism in the north and the east? Has human life lost its value? Aren’t we still under someone else’s rule?
Coming nearer to home we are kept hostage by our fellow humans be it the force that believes that Maharashtra can only have people who are only Maharashtrians; or be it the regular men in khaki who refuse to drive you to your chosen destination – so much so that we had to go on a “strike” against them?
So as we embark on our 63rd year of Independence I would like independence from corruption, from terrorism… May I ask for my fellow Indians to work towards a truly Independent India?
This is indeed India! The land of dreams and romance, of fabulous wealth and fabulous poverty, of splendour and rags, of palaces and hovels, of famine and pestilence, of genii and giants and Aladdin lamps, of tigers and elephants, the cobra and the jungle, the country of hundred nations and a hundred tongues, of a thousand religions and two million gods, cradle of the human race, birthplace of human speech, mother of history, grandmother of legend, great-grandmother of traditions, whose yesterday's bear date with the moldering antiquities for the rest of nations-the one sole country under the sun that is endowed with an imperishable interest for alien prince and alien peasant, for lettered and ignorant, wise and fool, rich and poor, bond and free, the one land that all men desire to see, and having seen once, by even a glimpse, would not give that glimpse for the shows of all the rest of the world combined.
- Mark Twain
