This Is What You Shall Do

This is what you shall do:

Love the earth and sun and the animals,

Despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks,

Stand up for the stupid and crazy,

Devote your income and labors to others,

Hate tyrants, argue not concerning God,

Have patience and indulgence toward the people,

Take off your hat to nothing known or unknown,

Or to any man or number of men,

Go freely with powerful uneducated persons,

And with the young and with the mothers of families,

Read these leaves in the open air,

Every season of every year of your life,

Reexamine all you have been told,

At school at church or in any book,

Dismiss whatever insults your own soul,

And your very flesh shall be a great poem.

-Walt Whitman

Ekla Chalo Re

यदि तोर डाक शुने केऊ न आसे
तबे एकला चलो रे।
एकला चलो, एकला चलो, एकला चलो रे!
यदि केऊ कथा ना कोय, ओरे, ओरे, ओ अभागा,
यदि सबाई थाके मुख फिराय, सबाई करे भय-
तबे परान खुले
ओ, तुई मुख फूटे तोर मनेर कथा एकला बोलो रे!


यदि सबाई फिरे जाय, ओरे, ओरे, ओ अभागा,
यदि गहन पथे जाबार काले केऊ फिरे न जाय-
तबे पथेर काँटा
ओ, तुई रक्तमाला चरन तले एकला दलो रे!


यदि आलो ना घरे, ओरे, ओरे, ओ अभागा-
यदि झड़ बादले आधार राते दुयार देय धरे-
तबे वज्रानले
आपुन बुकेर पांजर जालियेनिये एकला जलो रे!


If none heeds your cry to march together,
just walk alone, no if or whether.
If they answer not to thy call walk alone,


If they are afraid and cower mutely facing the wall,
O thou of evil luck,
open thy mind and speak out alone.


If they turn away, and desert you when crossing the wilderness,
O thou of evil luck,
trample the thorns under thy tread,
and along the blood-lined track travel alone.


If they do not hold up the light when the night is troubled with storm,
O thou of evil luck,
with the thunder flame of pain ignite thy own heart
and let it burn alone.

'Jodi Tor Dak Shune Keu Na Ashe' often shortened to Ekla Cholo Re (Walk Alone) is a song written by Rabindranath Tagore, part of the Rabindra Sangeet canon. It exhorts the listener to continue his or her journey, despite abandonment or lack of support from others. The song is often quoted in the context of political or social change movements;

Singing Across The Borders

We refuse to be enemies.
We refuse to use your words,
claim your politics,
accept your versions of history.
We will wear our anger
like a shroud,
we will hold our defiance
like a shield,
we will carry our compassion
like a sword.
We refuse to be enemies.
We refuse to believe
that hate is justified,
that peace is weak,
that conflict is endless.
We will sing
across the borders,
we will march
across the divisions,
we will fly our peace
like a flag.
We refuse to be enemies.

As a young undergraduate, Anasuya Sengupta famously wrote a poem, Silence, for Hillary Clinton during her 1995 India visit. It came to be quoted across the world by Clinton. A Rhodes scholar, PhD student and feminist, Anasuya continues to write poetry, and contributed this unpublished poem to Outlook's Independence Day issue.

Muh ki Baat

मुह की बात सुने हर कोई, दिल के दर्द को जाने कौन?
आवाजों के बाज़ारों में खामोशी पहचाने कौन?
मुह की बात..

सदियों-सदियों वही तमाशा, रास्ता रास्ता लम्बी खोज.
लेकिन जब हम मिल जाते है, खो जाता है जाने कौन!!

वो मेरा आइना है और मैं उसकी परछाई हूँ
मेरे ही घर में रहता है, मुझ जैसा ही जाने कौन

किरण किरण अलसता सूरज, पलक पलक खुलती नींदे
धीरे धीरे बिखर रहा है, जर्रा जर्रा जाने कौन?

This song “Muhn Ki baat sune har koi” by Jagjit Singh from the serial “Neem Ka Ped” that was telecasted on Doordarshan few years back. One of the most priced composition of Nida Fazli.

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."