time to remember tagore's gitanjali

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.
Rabindranath Tagore

mumbai

thinking about my homeland that i still love, india , mumbai
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Today at 2:44am Edit Note Delete
Every revelation is a revolution
no time to lose , no time to be personal[ edit delete ]posted 11/27/08
when significant things happen one has to set aside one's owm pettiness
history has escalated into moments that change things
the world was changed by 9/11
india has been changed by gandhi's death, the babri masjid demolition and now this mumbai attack
india is either going to be destabilised and broken up or it will go the hidutva way now unless we can raise enough voices to counter the change - sane voices that speak sense and hope for the future
i am proud to be an indian though i am no longer in india
i grieve for today's dead and for the injured and their loved ones
they are my brothers and sisters
i am proud to assert again that there are many in india in all its religions who are not fanatic or fundamentalist or violent and with these i take my stand
with the many here who honourjesus, buddha, gandhi, martin luther king jr and the other pacifists who made a difference to the world
i do not see any other way forward
violence is no answer except for self defence
justice is the answer, not death sentences
we will fight
we won't give up our hopes and love for our land,
every inch of which we treasure
may a new dawn break over the india i dreamed of as the india of the future
may tagore's poem still come true
long live india
victory to india

Shyamli - Prudence/nice cadence

Dear little Prudence,
run far and widefrom the entangling vines.
My arms,
They call to you in temptation.
Reaching towards and snapping at your
Dancing feet.

Dance your way out,
Oh prudence from the south,
Swing away from the beguiling smiles of men who pat beside them, the ivory sheets.
Beckoning for you to sit beside them, although these sixteen years of yours in this moralistic world would've,
Probably, taught you otherwise.

Oh dear prudent one,
How times have changed you, and carved into your frail translucent palms,
The name of the one who holds your heart, tight
The same callous hands that tug at your veins.
Mere strings tied to your limp, tired arms.

Ah, prudence,
With your lovely ballerina slippers,
Mace and satin - twirling and nodding,
Gracefully, smile heartlessly and unfeelingly still, in the cold while spotlight.
Twirl - nod – smile,at the empty rows of seats.
This echoing colleseum of unwatching eyes.
Unpresent.

At present, prudence, you are alone.
Possibly the only one, in this wayward town who still believes,
In everything you're told is right and
Even the rigidity of those rights and wrongs.

So sway to the words of a jilted Madonna.
Dance little lady dance.
Sway, sway away from all dem bad things.
Sway, sway away from all dem bad things

Arpita - 2

A legend passed me by
A stolid color
It seemed strangly appeasing and quick to pass
I seemed to leave the found
Sooner than I had picked it up
Let it be
The younger
Still waiting
For the two of us
I turned the corner
And emerged
the white countenance from the greyness around
the younger sat
behind his vocal set of two
and warmed me
With his accepting being
he questioned my calling
and showed me
two foreign lands mix
with my heritage
the objectivity broke
and clear reasons abridged
he cares for his art
and for survival
a condition of balance
with clear perspectives
the reason remains unanswered
it's still unfinished
with the first nail out
and the whole coffin to go.

Arpita Rawat - new poem, in progress

I met with time late that morning
Couldn’t tell my day’s running
And when I did step out
That’s when the wind turned
Murmuring the calling
With a feather in its cap

The crossroads is where it stood at
Unfailing and rich
The compromise was on its landing
Its space
Its sanctity
Its religion
I felt the sweep again
Further I went to the force
It paved itself for me
With waste from a gypsy land
With stolen smells from the past
With a touch of interspersed life
With style
And so I stood before it
Feeling the gnaw I knew not of
Feeling, and yet not knowing

Uncertainty strengthened my steps
While keeping in sync
With the rhythm alongside of me
She breathed her calmness
Relieving me of trepidation
And giving me focus
(To cross over and not to fall)
To my calling
To our calling
It had arrived
I felt no thunder
No revelation
There it stood
In the clothes of the ordinary
No light no thunder
It wasn’t a revelation
My calling seemed…
Ordinary?
Mundane
And
Unworthy
Of the day long siege
For the glory I hoped to find
I sought my lens
And saw through it
So opened the demon-like mouth
With blood stains and the darkness of a forest
But
Then came the words
The melodiousness of which
I describe with tapping fingers
With harmony in them
With innocent pride
In the words of a shishya
An artist
A performer
A dancer
He sang high to the tunes
Of what was
Of his asset that is movement
Of his deep lineage

Happy with the nonconformity
Of thoughts and flexibility
Of ideas
I redirected myself to
The younger, with deeper faith and knowledge

The path seemed smaller
Yet the magnitude of the realm
Increased beyond the highest.