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 

There are often times when we wonder about the problems that have plagued our country and end up so tangled in the thought of them that we drop into the pit of cynicism. The big bad words flash before our eyes everyday – corruption, rape, terrorism, drugs, and dirty politics, just to name a few. We find our dear journalists struggling to say the same story with different names as if it was the most horrendous thing they’d ever heard. On the receiving end, it is perpetual déjà vu.

One cannot blame either for we have gotten into a death dance, a vicious cycle (if I may call upon this overused expression) or as Tagore would say - lost our way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit. Often when we have a long list of tasks to accomplish we make to-do lists for ourselves. The humble to-do list can be called a sad by-product of the human habit of forgetting things, things which are sometimes very important. A list gives us perspective when we are lost in the alleys of a supermarket dazed by products wrapped in every colour of the rainbow. We realize what is important and what can wait.

Maybe the common man today is lost in that part of the supermarket of where they sell things like gloom, hopelessness, cynicism and despair. At such a time it wouldn’t be a bad idea to take a look at the to-do list which our forefathers made while fighting for the freedom of our country. Why were they fighting the British anyway? Why not just live in complacency? One of the reasons I believe was that they realized that there was something about the British rule which was fundamentally against the flourishing of India as a country, breathing, thinking and acting on its own based upon its own ideas of what was right and wrong. They had a vision, a dream, for India. That vision was their list which we inherited. Sadly, for our part we have done a pretty bad job with it. This particular poem by Tagore is part of that inheritance. It is a dream within a nightmare. A lot of people would find it of little use beyond poetry recitals but I insist stubbornly that each and every verse in this poem can and will be achieved if only we start working towards it.

This poem should serve as a wakeup call for every couch critic, every teacher, social worker, politician, every Indian out there. It is human to get lost in despair but it is equally human to gravitate towards hope and to realize it through action. I don’t have to write a summary of the poem for you. You already know it – it is your to-do list and now that you have seen it, it is time that you rejuvenate and remove yourself from the shelves which contain jars of despair and packets of gloom. Maybe you won’t be able to complete the job but you would make it much easier for your son or your grandson.




(Contributed by:-Monib Ahmed)

Why we love Libraries?

“The only thing that you absolutely have to know, is the location of the library.”

Albert Einstein

A library is a strange place. You can write about it from various perspectives depending upon your own experiences with books and libraries. When one thinks of a library,  one feels closer to humanity. Paradoxically most people seek solace in books from the loudness of society, retreating in a forgotten corner with a beautiful book, occasionally with a cup of tea or coffee.
Reading has always been associated with silence as the stereotypical librarian would rightly point you out in a movie with a single syllable beyond which her (strict old lady with glasses) only way of communicating with people appears to be long stern stares. But the apparent silence of the library is a popular myth. A library is one of the noisiest places there is if only you could hear the dialogues happening between a writer and a reader. Opinions firing around like cannon balls, destroying long cherished notions and creating new life from the wreckage.

When one says that we feel closer to humanity when we think of a library, one has to understand the difference between society that we live in and humanity. These two are not to be confused. The society that we live in is a fragment of humanity. Humanity spills over the confines of time and space. It is metaphysical. Humanity is something which we can all connect to despite the horrific things that people have done to each other through history. It is a ray of infinite hope. It is interesting that the word humanity can be used to denote our physical as well as our emotional development as a species.

Maybe you understand the perspective now. A book is a writer saying something which he thinks deserves to be said. Something which s/he believes would help others in the universal pursuit of happiness. It can be an idea or a story or an idea about a story or a story about an idea. The options are as limitless as stars in a galaxy. A library houses thousands, sometimes millions of these.

An important question you might ask is “What about a bookstore? It also has lots of books if that is what you are playing at”. The important difference between a bookstore and a library gives further weight to what I have to say. A library is a public space. The poorest member can borrow the same book as the wealthiest one. It is a community understanding the value of knowledge that has come to them through their forefathers and also the necessity of making it available for everyone.

One of the most impressive libraries that we have visited in India include the one located at Indian Institute of Advanced Studies, a research institute based in Shimla. The gorgeous building houses one of the leading research and reference libraries in Humanities and Social Science in the country. 

Indian Institute of Advanced Studies, Shimla

The building was designed in Indo-Gothic style by Henry Irwin in 1988 and was known as the Viceregal Lodge. After independence, the building was renamed Rashtrapati Niwas and was used as a summer retreat for the president of India. However, Dr. S Radhakrishnan decided to turn it into a centre of higher learning and the institute was formally inaugurated by Dr. S Radhakrishnan on 20 October 1965.

Next time you are on your summer retreat, do pay a visit to the Institute located on the outskirts of Shimla. You won’t regret it.

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