Hopes for the new year

I hope 2011 turns out to be a year of prosperity for our motherland, a year of communal harmony and brotherhood and a year free from corruption and other evils that hamper our country. I hope it's a year where everyone irrespective of religion, gender, cultural and linguistic diversities, income and occupation enjoy equal rights guaranteed by the Constitution of India.

2011 will be a crucial year for me. I want to do what I can for my country. I want to work for the underprivileged people. I want to form an association of youth who wish to render their service to the poor, because I believe that the future of India lies in the hands of the youth of the country. Young eyes can see beyond; their voice has the power to reach the stars. Their actions are as powerful as the storms.

I want to make my life worth living, by giving back to the society. Let ‘Bharath Matha' give me the strength to make my country a heavenly place to live in. An India free from poverty, illiteracy, terrorism, unemployment and chauvinism, is my dream.

I am starting the journey towards fulfilling my dream from this year onwards. My land should be a heaven for the natives and foreigners alike.

This is my wish for the new year:

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...

...Into ever-widening thought and action

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

Rabindranath Tagore

Nithya Jeejo, XII G, St. Thomas Central School, Thiruvananthapuram