60 yrs and counting...part II

Well I thought I will break the post...

I saw "Gandhi my Father" last night...but this is not about the movie - though in a line the movie is good. What this post is about the few grainy scenes near the end of our PM making that historic speech. The speech that a lot of people know about without having ever bothered to read it - Jawahar lal Nehru's speech made in the Constituent Assembly, on the eve of India's Independence.

I once asked a few friends about the speech. Three of them gave me this WTF kind of look...asking me what is wrong with me...:), two others said it is the greatest piece of oratory everrrrr...and when I asked them if they have read the speech they said they hadn't. Some others were at least aware that the lines they hear the most often are all part of just the first paragraph. Its a long speech so I wont copy it here, those who want to read can do so here - Tryst with destiny .

When you read it, it makes you realize the job our first PM left us. The dream he outlined for the country that he and millions others together envisioned. I thought I wouldn't put it here but I can never put it better than this...

"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... 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."
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"The achievement we celebrate today is but a step, an opening of opportunity to the greater triumphs and achievements that await us. Are we brave enough and wise enough to grasp this opportunity and accept the challenge of the future?"
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"And so we have to labour and to work, and to work hard, to give reality to our dreams. Those dreams are for India, but they are also for the world, for all the nations and peoples are too closely knit together today for any one of them to imagine that it can live apart"
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"The future beckons to us. Whither do we go and what shall be our endeavour?... 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."

"We have hard work ahead. There is no resting for any one of us till we redeem our pledge in full, till we make all the people of India what destiny intended them to be...And to India, our much-loved motherland, the ancient, the eternal and the ever-new, we pay our reverent homage and we bind ourselves afresh to her service."

I think it is not difficult to judge how far we have come and how far we need to go. Is it??

JAI HIND.