Miracle

Miracle, originally uploaded by Rima_B.

At midnight when the eighth child was born, the guards fell fast asleep and Vasudeva’s chain fell off his hands and feet. Wasting no time, Vasudeva picked up the newborn baby, and carrying it in a basket, he started towards Gokul. Gokul was a village of cowherds, located across the Yamuna river, where his friend Nanda lived.

It was a dark stormy night with blinding rain continuously pouring from the sky. When Vasudeva reached the river bank of Yamuna, the river was in spate. The wind and storm were blowing wild, and Vasudeva was in a fix.

“Lord, what should I do,” said Vasudeva in a hopeless voice.

Suddenly a miracle happened, the river parted and Vasudeva walked over the river bed. Throughout the way Vasudeva and the baby were protected from rain by the hood of the great eternal snake, Vasuki. Finally, Vasudeva reached Nanda’s house.

Thus goes the Legend of Lord Krishna’s birth.

An idol depicting Vasudeva carrying his baby, Lord Krishna, in a basket protected by Vasuki. Taken at Millennium Park, Kolkata.

Patriotic Balloons

Patriotic Balloons, originally uploaded by ReemaS226.

Where The Mind is Without Fear

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

Taken at Millennium Park, Calcutta on the next day after India’s 63rd Independence Day