Bharat Our Land

Read the poem in your book on pages 24 and 25. It is a song of praise to India by the Tamil poet Subramania Bharati.

Warm-up: the National Anthem. It too names India's parts: regions (Punjab, Sindhu, Gujarat, Maratha, Dravida (the old name for the south), Utkala (Odisha), Banga (Bengal)), mountains (Vindhya, Himachala) and rivers (Yamuna, Ganga). Jaya he means 'victory to you'.

The poem has two stanzas. In the first, the poet calls things 'ours' and says nothing can match them:

• the mighty Himavant (the Himalaya): there is no equal anywhere on earth;
• the generous Ganga: it gives and asks nothing back;
• the sacred Upanishads, ancient texts about truth and the soul;
• this sunny golden land itself.

The second stanza praises the people and their wisdom: gallant (brave) warriors, sages who made the land holy, the 'divinest music', every auspicious (fortunate) thing; Brahma-knowledge took root here, and the Buddha preached his dhamma here. India is of hoary antiquity: very, very old.

The refrain. Each stanza ends: she's peerless, let's praise her! Peerless means without an equal (peer = an equal, -less = without).

Read it as the poet's feeling. The poem is a song of pride and love for the motherland; that is the poet's voice, full of admiration.