- published: 24 Jun 2013
- views: 11811
India, officially the Republic of India (Bhārat Gaṇarājya), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the south-west, and the Bay of Bengal on the south-east, it shares land borders with Pakistan to the west;China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the north-east; and Myanmar (Burma) and Bangladesh to the east. In the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives; in addition, India's Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a maritime border with Thailand and Indonesia.
Home to the ancient Indus Valley Civilisation and a region of historic trade routes and vast empires, the Indian subcontinent was identified with its commercial and cultural wealth for much of its long history. Four religions—Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism—originated here, whereas Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam arrived in the 1st millennium CE and also shaped the region's diverse culture. Gradually annexed by and brought under the administration of the British East India Company from the early 18th century and administered directly by the United Kingdom after the Indian Rebellion of 1857, India became an independent nation in 1947 after a struggle for independence that was marked by non-violent resistance led by Mahatma Gandhi.
May the price of your heaven be this hell...
So we wander through all that is
Born up from shadows and lies
And everything that I have not
Is stained black with the blood of the blind
Whether chains of enslavement in silver
Or the glitter of the gilded cage
Are no less the bars between us
And our dreams as we march to the grave
In the horrors that breathe, of all that will be
Let us fear not the lies that they speak
Lest we are condemned to die on our knees
As dusk descends so all this must end
Let us lift up our hearts and become
The nameless damned, will you join the dance?
Of their culture's poisonous song
Let night begin, the winds whisper in
The echoing absence surrounds
To claim the means to sever the strings
To the myths to which we are bound
So we reach for the stars above us
For tomorrow may never come
And everything that I am not
Is the price of this world come undone
We are washed of the sins of the fathers
In the tears of the wounded and lost
And if we are the last of the loving
May their empires crumble to dust
If our hearts must weep for that should be
Let us fear not the worlds, which we seek
If all this must end then mourn not the ruins beneath
The names of the dead, whispered in tongues
Voices lie still, songs left unsung
Bury these words in ashes and blood
For here lie the worlds of dreamers;
Uncharted, decayed - unloved
If our hearts must break and we bear the scars
Then blind us in darkness to blot out the stars
And carve our tomorrows in the flesh of the past
So tear off this veil of humanity,