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.
— Rabindranath Tagore
Imogen Heap drew her inspiration from Where the Mind Is Without Fear when writing Minds Without Fear, heapsong4, the fourth track on the album Heapsongs.
Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941), Indian poet, philosopher, and Nobel laureate, was born in Calcutta, into a wealthy family. He began to write poetry as a child; his first book appeared when he was 17 years old. After a brief stay in England (1878) to study law, he returned to India, where he rapidly became the most important and popular author of the colonial era, writing poetry, short stories, novels, and plays. He composed several hundred popular songs and in 1929 also began painting.
Vishal Dadlani and Imogen Heap recording Minds Without Fear
Imogen Heap on the streets of Samode
Have pity on those afraid to take risks, because they will perhaps never experience disappointment or delusion or suffer as those do with a dream to follow. — Paulo Coelho
When you dream, you can enjoy the luxury of being yourself. Make it a reality. — Paulo Coelho
Minds Without Fear, heapsong4, the fourth track on the album Heapsongs by Imogen Heap.
The tracks of Heapsongs are crowd sourced, each is a community, collaborative venture. Each track has its own micro-site on the net.
Like Santiago in The Alchemist who took risks, followed his dreams, The Dewarists decided to follow their dreams, take risks, breakout of the mainstream, inspiring musicians collaborating to create original music while travelling to locations across India.
We all have to learn to be like Santiago, read the signs, listen to our heart, take risks, follow our dreams.
Imogen Heap collaborated with the duo Vishal-Shekhar to create Minds Without Fear, drawing her inspiration from the Tagore poem, ‘Where The Mind Is Without Fear‘. Filming took place at the 475-year-old Samode Palace on the outskirts of Jaipur in Rajasthan.
Minds Without Fear was available for free download. The bad news is that this was via a facebook app, not good news if you have no wish for a facebook app to have access to all your personal information.
Imogen Heap has a reserved space on bandcamp, but currently nothing there. Let us hope Heapsongs is uploaded when complete. In the meantime, please record the improvisation for Earth Hour 2012 and upload to bandcamp.
Were Heapsongs on bandcamp, the tracks could be added one by one. It would be possible to enable Minds Without Fear to be available for free download for a limited period, thus no excuse for forcing people to use a facebook app with its gross violation of personal privacy.
Imogen Heap headed The Dewarists Stage at the Bacardi NH7 Weekender in Pune, 18-20 November 2011.
The Dewarists is an exploration between the different musical genres in India, crossover of boundaries, collaboration between. The music can be downloaded for free via their facebook page.
Note: I mistakenly assumed from the link, download through a facebook app, if so, this would have been bad, but I am pleased to be able to report not so. You go through to a facebook web page, click like, provide an e-mail address and you will receive a link to download an mp3 file. It would though have been easier to have the track on bandacmp, click to download, provide e-mail, and receive a link.
This year celebrations are taking place to mark the 150th anniversary of the birth of Bengali playright, mystic, poet and musician Rabindranath Tagore. UNESCO has declared 2011 as the Year of Tagore.
One such celebration was at Dartington Hall in Devon where poets, singers and ecological activists got together to share their favourite Tagore verse.
I was pleased on Sunday to find that my good friend Satish Kumar was presenting a programme from this festival. Less pleased to find that BBC in their wisdom was only holding it on-line for 7 days. I do wonder why the BBC keeps shooting itself in the foot.
Satish Kumar edits the magazine Resurgence. When I am asked where does the idea for this blog come from, one of the inspirations has been Satish Kumar and Resurgence.
Something I did not know was that Dartington Hall was established by a follower of Tagore, at the suggestion of Tagore himself.
Tagore saw the divine in nature. Much of his work is poorly translated. Find a recent translation to really appreciate his work.
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