As The River Flows

I know
long ago
the river used to speak.
But when he realised
every drop of pain
flows above horizon of words
he surrendered to silence.

People came to his bosom
creating to destroy
and named it civilization.

People came to his bosom
looking for the meaning in destruction
and called it history.

More the time flows
more the time remains still.
More the things change
more the things remain the same.

The drops of pain
mounting on the bank –
will it overflow…
as the River flows?

It is written by Bidyut Kotoky making a movie titled Ekhon Nedekha Nadir Xipare, which literally means “Across an unseen river”. Bidyut has written his thoughts on the idea behind the film quite poetically.The premise of the film: In the India’s state of Assam, during the last 2 decades, over 15,000 lives have been lost to insurgency and an unknown number of people remain traceless till date…

Ancient Chinese Proverb

Go to the people

Live among them

Learn from them

Love them

Start with what they have

Build on what they have

But of the best leaders

When their task is accomplished

Their work is done

The people all remark

We have done it ourselves !

- Lao Tze

Prayer

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.

It is most quoted peom of Rabindranath Tagore. This poem is from Gitanjali, lit. Offering of Songs, published in English in 1910.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."