Sunday, December 5, 2010

Paper Boat

Date of Issue: November 14, 2010

This beautiful and colorful FDC with stamps were issued by India Post on Children's Day, celebrated every  year on November 14, to honor the memory of India's first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, on his birth anniversary, and who never failed to express his love for children.

I am happy to present this FDC here as it brings nostalgic moments. I too have made a paper boat myself as a child, while at my grandma's home during the annual school holidays, making paper boats with cousins, enjoying the rain and leaving the boat in the small stream from rain water, nearby the house.

This also makes me remember the poem "Paper Boat" by India's noted poet, Rabindranath Tagore, (1861 - 1941) which I read sometime somewhere. I like to share the poem today with my readers.

The translated English version, from the original Bengali language:

"Day by day I float my paper boats one by one down the running stream.
In big black letters I write my name on them and the name of the village where I live.
I hope that someone in some strange land will find them and know who I am.
I load my little boats with shiuli flowers from our garden, and hope that these blooms of the dawn will be carried safely to land in the night.
I launch my paper boats and look up into the sky and see the little clouds setting their white bulging sails.
I know not what playmate of mine in the sky sends them down the air to race with my boats!
When night comes I bury my face in my arms and dream that my paper boats float on and on under the midnight stars.
The fairies of sleep are sailing in them, and the lading is their baskets full of dreams.

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