Rabindranath Tagore wins popularity in the cyberspace
for his poem "Prarthana" from Naivedya

 

 
In the cyberspace Rabindranath Tagore occupies an unique position. Bangla-speaking homepage owners takes the pride to offer a space to present a particular poem of Rabindranath Tagore from the book Naivedya called "Prarthana" or in simplified english "Prayer" and in swedish "Bön".This particular poem has been translated into many languages. Bangladeshi homepage-owners of muslim background preferred this poem to any of Kazi Nazrul Islam' s poem . 

  It is also quite interesting to note that only a few Bangladeshi showed interest to put Kazi Nazrul Islam in the international information super-highway.Traditionally the Bangladeshi muslims consider Nazrul a better poet than Tagore. 

  The english translation of the poem no.35 from Gitanjali (English) has been presented here. Exact the same translation has been presented here without any change from the book "Collected Poems and Play of Rabindranath Tagore" published by The Macmillan Company 1945. Printed in the USA by the National Process Company. INC. New York, N.Y. For the swedish-speaking people I retranslated the original translation of the poem to a more acceptable one.The original swedish translation was done by Andrea Butenchön in 1915.Neither the english nor the swedish translation used the title of the poem and used poem no.35(XXXV) as the title.

 

 

35
Där själen är utan fruktan och huvudet hålles högt
Där kunskapen är fri
  Där världen ej brutits upp i småstycken genom tränga husliga väggar;  
Där orden välla fram ur sanningens djup;
Där outtröttlig strävan sträcker sina armar mot fullkomligheten;
Där förnuftets klara flod ej förlorat sig i de döda vanornas öde öken;
Där förnuftet ledes av dig mot en tankens och handlingens värld,
som ständigt vidgar sin gräns...
  I denna himmel av frihet, min fader, låt mitt land få vakna upp!
 

The english translation of the poem "Prarthana" was made by Rabindranath Tagore himself in the year 1912.

XXXV

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 everwidening thought and action---
  Into that heaven of freedom, my father,let my country awake.  

(Page 16)

 

 

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