I am India

I am India

a strange, absurd anomaly

a juxtaposition of contradictions

a single entity containing multitudes

a nation of all religions

a nation without a religion

and a nation beyond all religions

A nation of all languages

and of shared silences between their words

and of that sea of understanding, they all stream toward.

A nation of pasts ancient

times present and potentials future

I am both young and old

a nation too rootless in all times

The whole world in miniature I am

The mountains of Himalayas

Rivers worshipped by millions

Seas, deserts, and oceans

I am non-violence of Gandhi

and self-defense of Bhagat

I am Ashoka and Akbar

Aryabhata and Kalam

Namaste and salam

Confucious, Jesus, and Mohamad

Buddha and Mahavir

And ten Sikh gurus I am

And a thousand Meras and Kabirs.

I am Kalidas and Gulzar

Sachin and Usha

Sarasvati and Shiva

And several million gods

Of Africa, Greece, and Rome

The forgotten dead gods of Maya

And the gods that dance and smile

And the others that must now retire 

To the dark abyss

Of the forgotten collective unconscious

Having overstayed their welcome.

I am a land of culture

But a culture that accepts change

Admits to having follies and faults

For I know I am still growing

And I am challenging myself

To become even better

I starve with my poor

And cry with those of world

But I still crave for skies

For the stars beautiful 

And space between them

I contradict myself and that way

Try to be beyond all hypocrisy

For constancy and consistency

Are the luxuries of unimaginative,

Hypocrites or dead

I am a nation like all other nations

And all other nations are like me

We all yearn for land without fear

Tagore’s dream we all grope for

In the darkness of this world of bigotry,

Violence, miseries, and misunderstandings.

But I make efforts to go beyond myself

I take the whole universe in

And am consumed by it

Pakistan, Bangladesh, Japan

And Nepal too I am.

As well as Asia, Africa, and Antarctica

Europe and two Americas

For I am nothing and everything

That stuff stars are made of

As well as the death and the dust.

And I am also Einstein and Newton

Rilke, Pablo, and Pessoa

Coetzee, Soyinka, and Chinua

Luther, Che, and Mandela

Lispector, Marquez, and Akhmatova

Nothing beautiful is foreign to me

Nothing beautiful is excluded by me

I am Socrates, Rumi, and Nash

Dostoevsky, Goethe, and Dante

Eliot, Woolf, Lispector, and Brontes

For Much like I did with Kautilya

I will learn from them

Understand them and 

By understanding 

Become one with them

For no one can own the sun

What is beautiful is shared

And exists beyond

The tyranny of all borders

No one owns it

Not even the one who creates it

This is my greatest wisdom

I, India, belong to the world

And to every single nation inside it

And the whole world belongs to me

And one day we will all admit it

And this way we will grow

And be bigger than the universe

And so will all nations

Grow and contain each other

To form a land without nations

A land

Where the mind will dwell without fear

Copyright – Sidharth Vardhan