Where the Mind is Without Fear
Rabindranath Thakur wrote this poem in Bengali for his Geetanjali collection. He himself translated the work into English and I thank God that he did -- nobody else could have come close to doing it justice. He won the Nobel Prize for Geetanjali in 1913.

There are 103 poems in Geetanjali. This poem is number XXXV.

It is obviously a patriotic poem. The poet prays for Indians' freedom from the shackles, not only of the British, but also much more -- individual freedom and freedom from regional wranglings. It is an oft-quoted poem; its appeal in the modern era is not limited to India. I heard Martin Sheen recite it with aplomb, as his favourite poem, on BravoTV's "Inside the Actor's Studio".

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