Annotations: By Vengrai Parthasarathy
Rabindranath Tagore (aka Gurudev) was the first poet of the Indian literary canon to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in the year 1915 for the collection of his poems, GITANJALI- ( Prayerful Offering of Songs). Tagore, was an authentic Indian and patriot who sang proudly of his Motherland and of her spiritual heritage, proud of her soil, of her people, of her mountains and rivers and of her illustrious past.
His inner dreams come out vividly from his poems, ‘boat songs’ and the genre of music known as Rabindra Sangeet , popularized by him. Tagore was a contemporary of Mahatma Gandhi who had praised him as a ‘world poet and humanist’… The famous Irish poet W.B.Yeats in his introduction to the volume said ” This volume has stirred my blood as nothing else has for years”. He also notes in particular that Tagore’s poems were praised not only by scholars ” but they are sung by the peasants”.
Tagore’s Where the Mind is Without Fear is an inspirational prose-poem which’ shines and sings’. It is a manifesto, a prayer. It is a sermon and a wake-up call. It is all this and more. In this poem of eleven lines, Tagore has put together his recipe for freedom and uses some vivid metaphors which add overtones of meaning. He wants India to come out of her long slumber to meet the challenges ahead and realize her hopes and potentialities. The opening line is a golden compass with which a seeker after the noble cause of Freedom should steer his course. Freedom of the mind is the last frontier to be conquered first, he seems to stress.
‘A cultured mind capable of sober thought’ said Cowper, can have no fears. Is Tagore speaking of such a mind or of a pessimistic mind plagued by nameless demons?. Tagore sees fear as a padlock clapped on the mind His vision is mirrored in the words of Franklin Roosevelt who had said “Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance”. Tagore echoes a sentiment nearer to what Byron called the “eternal spirit of the chainless mind”…
As one who had great faith in India’s congruity in spite of its diversity , Tagore seems to exhort his countrymen to rise as a united nation, because divisions based on caste, creed, language and ideology create ‘narrow domestic walls’ which weaken the fabric of the nation whose strength is diversity.. A world without artificial walls is his dream.
His message for his fellow-countrymen, enslaved by the British, is to keeptheir ‘head held high’ — proud of their country’s history and rich heritage and philosophies,and bending before none.
Tagore emphasizes that knowledge, which is power, has to be free –unencumbered and not regimented. Ignorance leads to lassitude and backwardness in the modern fields of science, technology and arts, which are crucial for economic growth. if India. is to take her share in the new dynamic era that was dawning.
‘When words come from the depth of truth’, he says. Truth is not an easy peak to be scaled. It is up a steep hill. This animating line has found expression in post-Independent India’s motto of Satyameva Jayate ( Truth Alone Conquers/Prevails)
Tagore envisions an India where ‘tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection’.. The striking symbolism brings before our mind, arms stretching out to reach the golden goal of perfection – eternal striving to be better and better.
Tagore also dwells on the ‘ clear stream of reason, and ‘ever widening thought and action’. He advocates the communion of mind and heart, of thought and action, — to create new ways of conquering mental peaks. He does not want his country to be bogged down in the ‘dreary desert sand of dead habit'”. ‘ Habit’, in the words of poet Wordsworth ”rules the unreflecting mind”.
Tagore’s message is that vacuity of thought deadens the spirit . Each line of Tagore’s focuses the eye and mind on a single word or idea .He wants the mind to become what the poet Keats called ‘ a thorough fare for all thoughts’. Thoughts lead to action, is his vision.
The last line of this poem. which says ‘ Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake’ constitutes the quintessence of his dream for India . To Tagore freedom is a paradise, for which he has laid out the guide posts.
When Tagore concludes the poem with the word AWAKE ‘, he conjures up before our minds eyes. the image of a lion, that is India , rousing itself from sleep , shaking its manes and getting poised for a forward leap; of a Gulliver breaking out of the shackles of the Lilliputians It is fitting that Tagore should address this prayer to ‘My Father’, meaning God whose benediction he seeks and which India, a nation of many faiths, needs.
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