Dear parents and students,
This festive season , my message for you is to capitalize on your potential and unleash the power of your dreams.
Take Time
Take time to work
It is the price of success
Take time to think
It is the source of power
Take time to play
It is the secret of perpetual youth
Take time to read
It is the fountain of wisdom
Take time to be friendly
It is the road to happiness
Take time to love and be loved
It is nourishment for the soul
Take time to share
It is too short a life to be selfish
Take time to laugh
It is the music of the heart
But most importantly, take time to dream
It is hitching your wagon to a star.
The power of the human imagination is quite possibly our greatest and most human asset. We can perceive and envision events and states of being, a preferred future, that have not yet come to pass and then we can work to make them happen. On a small scale, we exercise this muscle all the time without even realizing it. As a cricket or football enthusiast, what gets you out of bed at 5:30am or keep you up till 2am to watch your favorite game? It's your imagination, my friend. You have a picture of yourself somehow happier, fitter, stronger, leaner, or more competitive. Maybe you even have goals. If you have goals then you have dreams. We're all dreamers. Turning a dream into reality is what makes us human. But some people have bigger dreams than most.
When speaking of dreams, I am reminded of Pandit Nehru's Independence Day speech in 1947 which was the culmination into reality of an entire oppressed nation's dreams, and I quote:
"Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance. It is fitting that at this solemn moment we take the pledge of dedication to the service of India and her people and to the still larger cause of humanity.
The future beckons to us. Whither do we go and what shall be our endeavour? To bring freedom and opportunity to the common man, to the peasants and workers of
India; to fight and end poverty and ignorance and disease; to build up a prosperous, democratic and progressive nation, and to create social, economic and political institutions which will ensure justice and fullness of life to every man and woman.
Even 64 years after that great event in our history, over the past few days, we have been fortunate enough to see history repeating itself- the peaceful protest led by Anna Hazare has rattled the establishment and given us hope for a brighter future. On this day that we celebrate the success of our great nation led by this common man who chose the path shown by Gandhiji to now become one of the most influential social leaders in Indian history, let's remember and extend his dream of a corruption free India by treating others with the dignity, honor, and respect that all people deserve.
As budding future businessmen, sports persons, corporate leaders, artisans, doctors, educationists and indeed responsible members of civil society, let us dream big for as Mother Teresa also said: reach high, for stars lie hidden in your soul. Dream deep, for every dream precedes the goal. We grow great by dreams. All big men and women are dreamers. They see things in the soft haze of a spring day or in the red fire of a long winter's evening. Some of us let these great dreams die, but others nourish and protect them; nurse them through bad days till they bring them to the sunshine and light which comes always to those who sincerely hope that their dreams will come true.
Even Gandhiji said: A man is but the product of his thoughts. What he thinks, he becomes.
I would like to conclude my blog entry with Rabindranath Tagore's prayer:
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.
Jai Hind.
Wishing you all a very happy diwali!!!!!
God bless
