A tale of two Indias

As you take your bag from the baggage claim at the airport

You see a big broken sign that reads

Welcome to India

Now this sign isn’t broken by the number of pigeons it hosts or the amount of pigeon poo it bears, but it’s broken by community

Its broken by community into communities that love and hate each 0ther

And it’s broken into two

A tale of two Indias

You make your way out of the airport and as soon as you touch Indian Soil, by however you want to touch it

You see three big lions. Three lions that used to wave at tourists and citizens alike.

But that was a long time ago when India was actually proud of what it was.

I see two Indias in my mind

One that hosts the Satyamev Jayate as proud as it hosts the newly inaugurated potholes on roads enough to make a swimming champion in there

A champion that should be proud of his country

A champion that should be proud for his country

A champion that should be proud because of his country

But is he?

Then I see another India. A generational one

An India that was told to me by my grandparents and was told to my grandparents by their grandparents.

All those tales of cultural identity and bravery that used to constitute India.

The idea of rebellion and democracy and non-violence in rebellions with democracy.

The India I know is hereditary like DNA but the India I live in is antithetical.

This is enough to confuse a GenZ like me.

Welcome to India.

A land with one foot in the Vedas and one in the Quran.

Here history is taught in classrooms where the ceiling fans spin so slow that you yourself believe you are history’s most valiant soldier.

Where democracy thrives in ethos if not the truth.

Where people line up for hours and hours to vote for change but we do not exactly know what change we want.

Where people believe in promises made by 75-year-old politicians yet see them recycled like our plastic bags in vegetable markets.

We see those promises recycled into statements that support the few rich people in our country.

Yet we are happy, because somehow acquainting ourselves with politics gives us self-esteem.

Welcome to India

Where the roads are like relationships.

Full of detours, broken bumpered motorcycles and cows.

Where traffic lights are mere suggestions and crosswalks just perilous decorations for any pedestrian.

Where cows on roads are treated just like we treat our Prime Minister.

Where transportation is a masterclass of patience.

Where people set up tents on train stations late at night as a result of their train arriving 10 hours late.

Somehow, we are always there where we are required, on time, fazed but happy.

Welcome to India

Where our judiciary system only works when crimes are committed in the affluent part of our country.

Where our constitution has become so cruel that our minimum wage is legally non-binding.

Where people can and are exploited for their labour and are not paid a single paisa.

Where rich people’s weddings block streets after streets flooding them with port and champagne and some wealthy alcoholics having caviar.

Where old farmers have to hang themselves on the very same streets such that their insurance can take care of their loan from the banks.

Where our police force itself needs protection from protests in order to break dams after dams of lies.

Where we agree, we have to agree and we do agree but we don’t have a problem with that.

Welcome to the land of tolerance.

Where two religions that loathe and detest each other breathe the same air but burn each other with bonfires of diversity.

Where cricket is the only ideology, we can agree on, it’s our only secular religion.

Where the nation forgets its differences for the one six Dhoni has to hit.

Where the nation forgives each other every time Dhoni hits a six.

Where people provisionally hate and tolerate each other.

Where temples gleam with architectural prowess.

Where mosques endow in meditation

Where churches bloom in hymns.

Everyone is there for each other at the right time.

Welcome to the land of gullibility.

Where democracy is a festival.

And the elections are the fireworks.

Promises rain down like confetti

But when the lights go out so does the accountability.

While the common waits for the rasgulla he never had- justice.

Welcome to the land of jugaad.

Where street vendors are more than brothers

Where street dogs are more than hygienic

Where spirituality is exported like silk but sympathy remains a foreign import.

Inflated and rare.

Where jugaad is an art form that represents academic excellence.

Something which keeps the wheels of our nation running.

We will fix the unfixable.

Turning scraps into miracles.

Where fixing a leaking pipe requires divine intervention

we rule over the Silicon Valley with DIY Made CEO’s

But the garbage we create is something we never tried to jugaadify.

India-

It’s messy, magnificent and maddening.

It’s a living cassette of contradictions played on repeat, but the contradictions are not flaws – they are our pulse.

It’s a journey where we unlearn virtues every morning and learn them again

It’s a string of perfect endings woven together by Bollywood.

It’s a semi-community, we aren’t there yet but the best thing is we are trying

We are trying in the form of IR

We are trying in the form of questioning society

We are evolving just by trying and we don’t realise that

It’s my India!

It’s the chaos upturned in Bittu’s Chai Wala when two people argue which party’s corruption is more patriotic.

It’s the parliament quarrelling over bills that would never pass.

It’s my home and I love it.

An imperfectly perfect me living in a perfectly imperfect India.

And now a GenZ like me is not confused anymore.