Heaven of Freedom
or
Where the Mind is Without Fear
by
Rabindra Nath Tagore
(Summary
& The Poem)
Rabindra Nath Tagore was an Indian
celebrity. He was a poet, patriot and a philosopher. He was born in 1861 and
wrote stories, plays, novels and poems. In 1901 he founded a school of fine
arts, which grew into Vishwa Bharti University. Initially, he wrote in his
mother tongue Bengali, which, when translated into English won great
recognition. It was in 1931, that he won the noble prize for literature for his
Gitanjali, a collection of songs and prayers offered to God. Tagore was a
patriot and a religious man. He was a man of nature, music and poetry and he
awakened the imagination of his pupils to the world of beauty, goodness and
wide sympathy.
‘Heaven of freedom’ / ‘Where the mind
is without fear’ is both patriotic and religious song. It is the 35th song of
Gitanjali. The poet has expressed a picture of an ideal India in this poem. The
poet wants his country, a free land for all the casts, creeds and their
thoughts and their actions.
Heaven of Freedom
or
Where the Mind is Without Fear
(The
Poem)
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.
Summary
In the poem, the poet expresses his
longing for the future of India. Tagore wants to have the freedom of minds for
his countrymen. He wants his people to be free from all type of fears and hold
their heads high with pride. He wants India to be free from all types of
bondages. It is the wish of the poet, that without any distinction, all the
people of his country should have knowledge. Tagore does not want his country
to be divided into “fragments by narrow domestic walls”. The poet says, that
the true freedom should be obtained and the true freedom is the freedom from
narrow ideas, from the consideration of casts and creeds and from nationality
etc. According to him true freedom can be achieved when our words come from the
depths of truths.
The poet further personifies the ‘Tireless
striving’ and says that it has stretched its arms towards ‘Perfection’. The
dream of the poet portrays India a place, where reason flows in a clear
crystalline stream and does not lose its way into the desert of dead habits.
According to him his country will be a place, where all thoughts and all
actions will be welcomed. He prays God, to let his country awake in such heaven
of freedom.
The poem is written in a free verse
form. It presents noble ideas. It has no rhyming pattern and has a controlled
rhythm. The poet has personified ‘timeless striving’ and ‘perfection’.
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