The Renaissance man!
Amidst unrelenting darkness
Emerged a leading light
To awaken and galvanize the masses
The benefactor of mankind and a crusader
The man who carried India from her archaic past
To her enlightened future
Man of India’s destiny
*****
The Acharya!
A physicist with a biologist’s mind
Believed in the fundamental unity of all life forms
But was conscious that all life forms
Don’t possess the same level of consciousness
*****
The Nobel !
Poetry for him was a picture of mind and soul
One found in his poetry the deepest truths of life
Watching the sunrise he found the veil suddenly lifted
Everything became luminous
And gushed out Awakening of the Waterfall
The myriad minded man left behind him
A heritage time can’t consume
*****
A socialist monk!
Religion for him was realization
God made no sense him if he can’t give bread
Said the ardent Vedantist
“From dreams awake, from bonds be free,
Be not afraid, This mystery
My shadow, cannot frighten me
Know once for all that I am He”
*****
A spiritual optimist !
With will and intelligence he undertook a conscious journey
To discover the self
India has not yet spoken her last word, he believed
”We must return and seek
The sources of life and strength within ourselves…”
*****
An ocean of compassion !
Defiant and orthodox
A revolutionary and a social reformer
Gotten "The genius and wisdom of an ancient sage
The energy of an Englishman
And the heart of a Bengali mother"
*****
A nationalist with a tender heart !
Essentially a free man
Not for him were 'heaven-born’ Indian services
Destined for “Qadam qadam badhaye ja
Khushi kē geet gaye ja
Yeh zindagi hai qaum ki
Tu qaum pe lutaye ja.”
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‘Manik’ of the World Cinema !
His images, a collage of human spirit
His cinema, a reflection
On the chronicle of social change
Elites awakening to rationalists ideas
Liberation of woman
Anguish of the unemployed
The inexorable death of the conscience
Reassertion of basic values