Rabindranath Tagore
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.
Today, May 7th marks the birth anniversary of India’s first Nobel Award winner Rabindranath Tagore. And this poem was written by Tagore in 1913 before India’s independence. It represents Tagore’s vision of a new and awakened India. Let us hope India comes closer to perfection one day.