Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore born on this day in 1861 was a polymath who wrote, painted as well as composed.
Read this poem on freedom which rings just as true for our times as it did for his.
***
Freedom from fear is the freedom I claim for you my Motherland!—fear, the phantom demon shaped by your own distorted dreams;
Freedom from the burden of the ages, bending your head, breaking your back, blinding your eyes to the beckoning call of the future;
Recommended
Freedom from the shackles of slumber wherewith you fasten yourself in night’s stillness, mistrusting the star that speaks of truth’s adventurous path;
Freedom from the anarchy of destiny whose sails are weakly yielded to the blind uncertain winds, and the helm to a hand ever rigid and cold as Death;
Freedom from the insult of dwelling in a puppet’s world, where movements are started through brainless wires, repeated through mindless habits; where figures wait with patience obedience for a master of show, to be stirred into a moment’s mimicry of life.
***