60th Independence Day

15th August 1947 – India gains Independence from years of colonial raj and ushers in a new dawn. 60 Years hence, India is a force to be reckoned with on the International stage and (albeit alongwith China) is the nation-to-watch. On the eve of India’s 60th Independence Day, I salute all Indians, wherever they might be, and join them all in basking in the proud feeling of being an Indian.

I read this poem by Rabindranath Tagore in a journal today, and it has never sounded so fitting:

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.