Available Answers

1. 1.

   What are the different qualities of the 'heaven of freedom' which the speaker prays for? Four of them are mentioned here. Mention four others.

   1. The mind is fearless.
   2. People have confidence and a sense of pride in themselves. ('head held high')
   3. Knowledge is available to all, not just to some.
   4. There is no division, discrimination or enmity between groups, sections of society or nations.
2. 2.

   Consider the contrast made between a 'clear stream' and a 'dreary desert'.

   1. What is like a clear stream?
   2. What is like a dreary desert?
   3. What happens to a clear stream when it runs into a desert?
   4. What tends to weaken and destroy our reasoning ability?
3. 3.

   Is 'the heaven of freedom' a place to rest from effort or is it a place of continuous (tireless) effort? Effort to achieve what?

4. 4.

   Does the mind also move, in that heaven, continuously in some direction? What does it move towards?

5. 5.

   Look at the last line. The prayer is clearly for 'my country', but is it only for one country? What is said earlier in the poem about 'the world broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls'? Are the different qualities referred to ('the mind is without fear', 'knowledge is free' and so on) confined to (or special to) any country or section of the world? What, then, is the speaker's idea of 'the heaven of freedom'?

6. 6.

   We can paraphrase 'narrow domestic walls' as 'rigid division into nations / kingdoms'. How would you paraphrase these phrases?

   • tireless striving
   • clear stream of reason
   • desert sand of dead habit
   • ever-widening thought and action...