With apologies to Rabindranath Tagore for the temerity of penning a travesty of his wistful poem “ Where the mind is without fear….”

Seventy years hence

We paid with blood to keep our tryst with destiny

Somewhere down the road, we lost our way

Into a dark forest of untruth, terror and barbarianism

Minds caved in to fear and few heads can be held high

Knowledge is distorted

 The country is being broken up into fragments

By narrow domestic walls

Words come from depths of darkness

 There is a tireless striving towards power and gain

The clear stream of reason has long lost its way

Into the dreary desert sand of regressive habits.

The mind is led backward by parochialism

Into ever-narrowing thought and action

How many Augusts more, Gurudev,

Will it take for my county to awake?

I want to celebrate my Independence….