Chitto jetha bhayshunyo (Where the mind is without fear) is among one of the most quoted poems in India and Bangladesh. Poetry (ancient Greek: poieo = create) is an art form in which human language is used for its aesthetic qualities in addition to, or instead of, its notional and semantic content. ...

Written by Rabindranath Tagore before India's independence, it represents Tagore's dream of how the new, awakened India should be. The original Bengali song was translated by the poet himself and was included in the Nobel prize winning Gitanjali in 1912. (Bengali: , IPA: ) (7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941), also known by the sobriquet Gurudev, was a Bengali poet, Brahmo Samaj philosopher, visual artist, playwright, novelist, and composer whose works reshaped Bengali literature and music in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. ... Nobel Prize medal. ... Gitanjali is a collection of 103 English poems, largely translations, by the Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore. ...

The English version is:

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 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.

The original Bengali version is:

চিত্ত যেথা ভযশূন্য উচ্চ যেথা শির, জ্ঞান যেথা মুক্ত, যেথা গৃহের প্রাচীর
আপন প্রাংগণতলে দিবস-শর্বরী বসুধারে রাখে নাই খংড ক্ষুদ্র করি,

যেথা বাক্য হৃদযের উতসমুখ হতে উচ্ছসিযা উঠে, যেথা নির্বারিত স্রোতে,
দেশে দেশে দিশে দিশে কর্মধারা ধায অজস্র সহস্রবিধ চরিতার্থতায,

যেথা তুচ্ছ আচারের মরু-বালু-রাশি বিচারের স্রোতপথ ফেলে নাই গ্রাসি-
পৌরুষেরে করেনি শতধা, নিত্য যেথা তুমি সর্ব কর্ম-চিংতা-আনংদের নেতা,

নিজ হস্তে নির্দয় আঘাত করি পিতঃ, ভারতেরে সেই স্বর্গে করো জাগৃত ||

The last two lines of original Bengali version are harsher. They state:

"Lord Father, strike {the sleeping} Bharat (India) without mercy,

so that it may awaken into such a heaven.

While Tagore was not a politician, his poem has continued to inspire Indians to create a free-thinking, united and dynamic nation. The poem is also very popular among the liberal in Bangladesh.

Tagore died on August 7, 1941, six years before an independent India came into existence.

Links

• Freedom of thought
• Independence Day (India)
• National revival

Freedom of thought (also called freedom of conscience and freedom of ideas) is the freedom of an individual to hold or consider a fact, viewpoint, or thought, regardless of anyone elses view. ... Indias Independence Day (Hindi: Swatantrata Divas) is celebrated on August 15 to commemorate its independence from British rule and its birth as a sovereign nation on that day in 1947. ... National revival or national awakening is a term used in some European nations for their period of romantic nationalism. ...

External links

• Mother of all IITs
• Quoted by the Prime Minister at VISHWA BHARATI UNIVERSITY (15-Dec-2001)
• Quoted at the 66th Session of the Indian History Congress
• Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
• Where the Mind is Without Fear
• Bengali Songs - Rabindra Sangeet