Where Mind is Without Fear- Maharashtra Board Class 10 English

Where Mind is Without Fear- Maharashtra Board Class 10 English
 About the poet

Rabindranath Tagore was born in Kolkata on May 7, 1861, and died on August 7, 1941. He was a scholar who changed Bengali literature by writing on a variety of subjects. His works have been translated in a variety of ways. Tagore's writings were imagistic, devotional, and filled with the beauty of nature and his birthplace. In 1913, he became the first non-European to gain the Nobel Prize for Literature.

About the poem

The actual Bengali poem's title is "Prarthana" (A Prayer). It's Naivedya's lyric 72, which means "offering." The English version of the poem has no title like Shakespeare's sonnet .. In the English Gitanjali, it is verse 35. The poem's opening line has been utilized as the title. Tagore wrote the poem while India was still under British colonialism and Indians were excitedly anticipating their independence. It is a prayer to the Almighty for a nation free of all manipulation and corruption. The poet's good and perfect nature is reflected in this poem.

Summary

     The poet truly prays to God to awaken his fellowmen to the necessity of living in a free and united country. He wants his people to wake up and live a life of dignity and honor.His people would not be superstitious or believers in blind faith; instead, they would live informed and educated lives. He wants individuals to be honest, open-minded, and hardworking. Only then will they stretch their "arms toward perfection," and the nation will be able to reach its full potential.

They must put their reasoning skills ahead of their blind faiths, and they must be willing to absorb new ideas and thinking. He prays to God to deliver his country from tyranny, corruption, and servitude. He wishes for an enlightened country where people may think freely and express themselves.

The poetry elicits strong patriotic feelings. Castes, creeds, superstitious beliefs, and skewed ideologies have enslaved our country. Tagore prays sincerely to God for a country where people's "heads are high" and "knowledge is free."

Due to narrow thinking, his nation would not have been divided and fragmented into fragments. They should speak from "the depths of truth" and the heart, not from the mind. He prays to God to lead his compatriots to a moral awakening so that they might fight for their rights against the inhumane British restrictions. Remove the dread of persecution, repression, and enslavement from their minds. Remove the bonds of fear and guide them down the path of progress and wealth. They should not feel limited, but rather confident. There will be no discrimination or inequality in the country based on caste, creed, or gender. Countrymen should be open-minded and unprejudiced in accepting new challenges and changes. They should conduct themselves in a decent and dignified manner.

To sum up, “Where The Mind Is Without Fear” is a poem in which Tagore exposes his personal search for the Divine and is marked by a diversity of unique subjects in both thinking and expression.

As a result, this poem is noteworthy in that it portrays the intensity of the emotion of liberation to a large extent. His poetry has a universal appeal, imagining a ‘heaven of freedom' and a brighter future for humanity.

LINE BY LINE EXPLANATION

1st stanza (from 1 to 4)

The poet begins to picture how he would like his country to be in these lines. He claims that no one in his country should be afraid all of the time. Instead, they should be bold in their approach and have faith in themselves. All citizens should have access to information. In other words, educational institutions should accept pupils of all ethnicities and socioeconomic groups. Instead of warring amongst themselves for domination, India's different regions and peoples should band together. To define their common fate, they should fight together against a common enemy.

LINES   5 to 8

In these lines, the poet declares that everyone should tell the truth in India of his dreams. No one should deceive others for personal gain. Every man should make an attempt to better himself and continue to try until he achieves self-perfection. The explanation, he imagines, is an unpolluted stream of water through which one can go smoothly and without facing too many difficulties. He, on the other hand, sees habit as a desert. He believes that the stream of reason has been entangled in the sands of habit. This means that he is arguing that the people of his country blindly believe in their superstitions at the moment and that he wants them to challenge them using rationality.

LINES  9–11

The poet addresses God directly in these lines. He wants to lead his compatriots so that they might extend their horizons in both their thoughts and actions. If they succeed, India will be converted into a paradise where all of its residents would be really free.