Keeping up with the tradition, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman invoked legendary poets like Tagore and Thirukkural during her Budget speech 2021.
Towards the beginning, Sitharaman read out a couplet by Rabindranath Tagore: “Faith is the bird that feels the light/and sings when the dawn is still dark.”
The lines are from Tagore’s poem titled Fireflies, translated from bilingual Lekhan (1926). “My fancies are fireflies,-/ Specks of living light/twinkling in the dark,” reads the first verse. The poet wrote it during his stay in Balatonfüred in Hungary while he was reportedly undergoing treatment for heart disease.
“The lines in the following page have their origin in China and Japan where the author was asked for his writings on fans or pieces of silk,” writes Tagore in the introduction, dated November 7, 1926.
Not only Tagore, Finance Minister also recited a couplet from Tamil poet Thirukkural: “A King/Ruler is the one who creates and acquires wealth,/protects and distributes it for common good.”
Composed by Thiruvalluvar, this is taken from the classic Tamil text consisting of 1,330 short couplets of seven words each, divided into 133 chapters. The text is divided into three books with teachings on virtue, wealth, and love.
The origin of the text has been dated variously between 300 BCE and 5th century CE. It is considered a vital work on ethics and morality.
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