Freedom of Mind- Fight Within

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.

~ Rabindranath Tagore, 1913- Gitanjali

Eminent poet Tagore described his dream and vision about awakened India after independence in the above few lines but in our current scheme of things, lot is desired to be done to make this reality after 64 years of freedom. While we are indeed making progress on different aspects of society, much is needed to liberate our mind in our societies and in different parts of world.  How do we answer to the questions on differentiated behavior still being meted out to sons and daughters in many families, the way society objectify and treat women? Our societies are still not free from some of the archaic rules and regulations coupled with lack of education, want of basic infrastructures and poverty, pushing the growth back by quite a few decades. As citizens of a free country and today’s world, we are forced to live under a constant threat and continuous fear of security and law and order. This sense of insecurity stemming from degrading mentality of society has restricted our daughters and womenfolk to go out and win over obstacles slowing down our overall progress.  

At the individual level, while we continue to fight for legislation, we need to reflect upon ourselves to judge our actions and decisions bereft from any kind of prejudices. Some serious effort is needed at personal level to consider women and men as just as two wheels – equally needed in the journey of life. There is also an immediate need to look at how we treat our fellow people in the neighborhood or on the street with an open mind against a value system free from all biasedness. Basic civic sense is lacking in a good number of people and we need to get into an internal FIGHT -

Fist that is raised

In the hope to

Gain over

Heinous acts and

Threats 

with none other than ourselves to mature to the next level.