THe Poet's Lament

The emotion of patriotism is an enigmatic one. Many a heart is moved and many an eye sheds tears in matters of victory and defeat of one's country. In this hour of great distress and depressing disillusionment with our cricketing zeroes... oops... heroes, I seek solace in the lofty ideals espoused in this wonderful poetic piece of the late Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore.

Where The Mind is 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.

Rabindranath Tagore

Neelu has fan mail

I had started to write in the blog to keep my creative mind working and prevent it becoming a devil's workshop. I have always been pestering my friends and other well wishers to comment on my works. The response has been encouraging. However, I harboured a small doubt in the corner of my mind that the positive comments were more out of concern for my emotions rather than for facts.

And then came 2007 and a new pen friend, Ms.Chavez from Brazil. My first 'fan', if she would not mind my calling her that. She has been encouraging me to write more. Considering the fact that we have never met and that she is not legally or emotionally bound to keep my spirits high, her words of applause for my works have really instilled in me a sense of confidence to write more.

Ms.Chavez is a law student and I wish her sincerely a successful career. The credit for the herculean task of making me shrug away my laziness and complete the 3rd part of my story " the journey begins" would be that of this new friend.

Thais... thanks a lot. I now understand the feeling which an artiste or writer gets when he is genuinely encouraged.

I will definitely write more regularly now.

I should also record my appreciation for the pats on my back from Jawahar(jawaman), Raghu ( superthumby) and my sister in law, Mrs. Lakshmi Krishnan.