It’s been nearly a week since Independence Day, and since my last article came out. I’ve been pondering over what I want to write about for my next article (this one, dear reader!), and I thought, the country’s still the same, still gobbled up in trouble, violence, etcetera. But here we are, still in our country, trying to make it better, always returning to our homeland, even if we find a better life outside. And I realized… my last article was the first piece I wrote without bashing our country! …and, it wasn’t enough! Our country is an amazing place on earth – we love it that much to not leave it even when it’s scarred and marred to bits and streaks. So this one’s going to gush over what makes India so excruciatingly beautiful:
Okay, India really is beautiful! If you’ve been to the mountains, the beaches, the seas, you’ll know that, but what’s more beautiful is the people, the culture (and so many of them, it’s hard to keep track!), the rich history, and the incredible stories they’ve spun. Our country has been ravaged and spit on by an enormous number of forces, and we have still managed to keep our country exclusively ours: it’s safe to say, we are insanely strong!
Through many trials, battles and wars, won or lost, we have indeed emerged strong, unarmed-ly courageous and fault-fully fearless; through many scars we have learnt to get up and move on, and such beauty cannot be drawn and painted the way we have on our canvas. The country may be divided into boundaries that don’t always agree with each other – but those different communities, with their own laws and culture and values – make for such an interesting palette; there’s almost not enough crayons to color India. India is diverse, but also united. Beauty is in the eye of the fighter!
Every weekend, at least one foreign food company opens their store here. And we rush in, posing at the tables with the foreign food and posting pictures on the internet. “Italian for breakfast, Chinese for lunch, American for on-the-go snacks, and French for dinner.” Have you ever tried Indian for all the three meals?
Indian food is pure, raw power. There’s nothing more gleefully Indian than sitting at a dhaba and ordering food that takes more time to arrive at your table than for you to decide which item tasted better. There are so many spices and so many differently-tasting, smelling dishes that one would have to stretch the horizons of their culinary flavor-tickers to even fathom their impact. There’s something for everyone. Pizza is great, but even the Italian can’t add the crazy amount of spices to make it look good next to biryani!
English is uppity, Indian languages are carnal. Every language in this world has their own charm, but in their own place. In India, hindi, bangla, Punjabi, and all the other languages are what makes us feel like we’re home and we belong here. Our mother language is the verbal channel back to our home, an intense tingling euphoria that runs down our entire body when we speak in the language that we inherited from this country.
And finally, and I simply must include this: we never give up! Our country isn’t exactly the best place to live in, sometimes we are scared to even step out of our homes in certain places; through poverty and violence, through corruption and injustice, we still fight for our country that’s been limping for years, and we never, ever give up trying! We write poems and tales, we stand up for what’s right, we mourn the dead and lynch the guilty (or at least, we plan to!), but we never leave behind a comrade, and we keep moving forward, but we also keep staying in our country.
Have you ever seen a bullfight? Yes, it is cruel – either one has to die in the end. It’s painful. But neither the bull nor the man runs away from the fight. Just saying, India sure knows how to lock horns with the devil!
