Tagore's Dream.... Miles to go before we sleep

Most poets are idealists ... not only do they use their poetic license to over rule the grammar rules in the language but also work towards making the grass greener and the world a better place to live in. I happened to come across Tagore's poem today and how he pictured his country post the English Rule. Here is the poem:

My Country Awake

Where the mind is without fear and the head 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.

by Rabindranath Tagore

Analysing this....

In today's world the country described by Tagore does not exist. We are a democracy and so are a number of countries ...but most of the world is ruled by fear. Fear need not just arise from terror but it we fear many other things. Fear of society is what has engulfed the world. Amongst the population I think Indians rank number one in this area. We do not carry on our daily tasks without worrying about the way we appear to our fellowbeings. Our "mind is not free" and will never be. Knowledge is never without a price thats not being debated. I am not sure why Tagore even thought this would work but the concept of "Guru Dakshina" has always been there. Of course, I smile as I write this because I work on open source "free" software.
All of India united before we got our freedom and we were broken into states, castes, creeds and races the very minute we got our freedom. The world atlas has changed much since I studied my Geography. Maybe one Gondwanaland would have been best ;). More later...