Vanshaj's

Rabindra Nath Tagore

Go not to the temple to put flowers 
upon the feet of God,
First fill your own house 
with the Fragnance of love....
Go not to the temple to light candles 
before the alter of God,
First remove the darkness of sin 
from your heart.....
Go not to the temple to bow down 
your head in prayer,
First learn to bow in humility
before your fellowmen....
Go not to the temple to pray 
on bended knees,
                                              First bend down to lift someone
                                              who is down-trodden......
                                              Go not to the temple to ask for 
                                              forgiveness for your sins,
                                              First forgive from your heart
                                              those who have sinned against you.

A Verse From The Gitanjali

Mind 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.

150th Birth Anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore

Rabindranath Tagore, one of the greatest poets and thinkers India has ever produced. In the present day World, riddled with war and violence, his writings on universal humanness and peace are more relevant than ever.
               The multi-cultural educational efforts carried out by Tagore became an inspiration to educators around the world, and schools following his philosophy of human unity were created in many countries.One of the famous students of Viswabharati, Prof Amartya Sen has captured Tagore’s versatility in his article. Ramchandra Guha’s article on the other hand, talks about Tagore’s influence on contemporary world leaders like Gandhi.

Happy Mother's Day!

For all the times you gently picked me up,
When I fell down,
For all the times you tied my shoes
And tucked me into bed,
Or needed something
But put me first instead.
For everything we shared,
The dreams, the laughter,
And the tears,
I love you with a "Special Love"
That deepens every year.
   
Happy Mother's Day!

A Red Rose

O my Luve's like a red, red rose
That's newly sprung in June;
O my Luve's like the melodie
That's sweetly played in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a' the seas gang dry:

Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi' the sun;
I will luve thee still, my dear,
While the sands o' life shall run.

And fare thee weel, my only Luve,
And fare thee weel awhile!
And I will come again, my Luve,
Tho' it ware ten thousand mile.

                            By - Robert Burns

History Don't Tell

History don’t tell my students what they need to know

Students here are dark and poor

History shows them lily white

Shows them men with guns and might

Tells elaborate tales of landed gentry

White male landowners owning all the property

They hear the drones of their declarations, contestations and Modernity

No surprise students start to say, “Maybe someday that could be me!”

History don’t let the students know

The resistance of 500 years ago

The people locked out of the American Dream

The people who labored and toiled this earth

While Massa got fat and lived the dream on their backs

History doesn’t tell the students what they need to know

Need to know to fight all that

The red on the reservation

The black on the plantation

The white indentured servant on the field

The yellow on the railroad

The brown migrant worker

The woman and child’s nimble fingers in the factory

The immigrant who met with a rude awakening

The differently abled body who couldn’t fit into the capitalist’s logic of efficiency

Or the one who loves differently

The supremacy

The divvying people up

For empire dreams

Profit maximizing and expanding on human bodies

History don’t let the students know

The Reality

Of people fighting

Fighting all that

Building solidarity

Voices speaking

Spitting out the great Father’s milk

Demanding something else

Rumbling

Opposing

Resisting

History needs to let students see

Let students see all that

And see these people as themselves

‘Cause when they go out there

And leave the classroom for good

History should have done it's job

And told them the truth

And History needs to give them the tools to use

‘Cause when they leave, leave the classroom for good

It’s the same thing