Monday, July 17, 2006

tagore's gitanjali, updated for our sorry times

july 17th, 2006

i have also been observing, sadly, that a number of boses, some of whom are from netaji's family, are so anti-national that it boggles the mind. there is one of them from harvard, another is a journalist.

so also bengalis in general, once upon a time at the forefront of the indian renaissance. what happened to them?

although i have to say that to my cynical mind, the tagore original was a bit too kumbaya-type too. spare the rod and spoil the child, i think, whenever someone waves the original tagore poem around.

---------- Forwarded message ----------

From: Gautam
Date: Jul 17, 2006 1:16 PM


Tagore modified by V Sundaram

Where the mind is full of fear
And the head is held low
Where knowledge is costly
And the world has been broken up
Into fragments by narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depths of diabolic untruth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms
Towards transcendental destruction
Where the turgid waters of Communist unreason
Have completely swamped the tiny islands
Of enlightened humanist reason
Where the mind is led forward
By thee into never ending vistas
Of thoughtless Stalinist action
Or actionless Leninistic thought
Into that hell of 21st century Maoist Bengal
My father
Let not Let not Let not
My beloved Bengal of 21st century arise!

V Sundaram, IAS, Retd

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