How I would describe India to a foreigner

Brindha Vinodh

Brindha Vinodh

To see a temple, church and mosque

on three parallel streets is no surprise,

Faith is an ocean here, flows in different forms,

has no death.

 

Tongues twirl in varied syllables,

to each language its own layered history, beauty and pronunciation,

yet, uncommon not, to spot a man with turban having a conversation

with a man in a casual shirt and veshti in a nearby market.

 

Classical Bharatanatyam of Tamilnadu to Kathakali of Kerala,

tribal Jagoi of Manipur to folk Bhangra of Punjab,

Andhra’s Kuchupidi or Orissa’s Kathak,

rhythmic bodies, waltzing feet, swaying eyes;

each dance form a bead in a common string of art,

spilling hundreds of stories of

devotion, celebration and tradition.

 

Do not be surprised by that fan-boy moment

of watching the first-day-first-show of their favourite hero

in Bollywood, Kollywood or Tollywood, whistling with puckered lips,

it’s but the pride from victory of having meandered through a

jelly-like squeezing crowd,

and still to go,

be not surprised either by the mad mob

making it to the cricket stadium, sitting on the edge-of the-seat, curious eyes dance

between rhythms of the ball and the bat;

in contrast, stray dogs zigzag between

swaying thighs of young boys playing street cricket.

 

The ancient architecture through lustrous marbles of the Taj Mahal,

the gleaming granite of Tanjore’s big temple,

intricate rock-cutting archaeological

sculptures of Ajanta and Ellora caves, the electrifying ambience of palaces in

Jaipur,

in each structure, pearl-sweat of artistic masons;

 

the land of Aryabhatta, Kalidasa, Tenali Rama, Shivaji, Rani Lakshmi Bai,

Gandhi, Tagore, an amalgamation of the wise, scholarly, creative, literary

and the brave;

 

Kashmir’s salty-sweet pulao from houseboats on Dal lake in the north imbuing

with caramel-brown dosas of the South mirroring their topography,

Delhi chaat reflecting life’s experiences with bitter-sweet-salty-tangy chutneys

and the aroma of Assam tea in the north-east mingling with the softness of

shimmering full-moon rasagullas glimmering in the sky of sugary syrups in Bengal

in the east,

intertwining with them the heady fragrance of Coorg’s coffee enroute the beaches

of Andaman, navigating through the Malabar coast to Gujarat’s dhokla and

Mumbai’s Dabeli in the West,

this is India for you.

 

Rickshaws on rustic roads, autos on suburbs, feet-hanging-down-to the-ground

commuters on public buses; colliding shoulders of strangers running to switch

trains in those rush-hour mornings and evenings; street vendors at the entrance of

malls; the unique life of sages near the Ganges;

 

where marriage is not a conjunction of two souls, but a bonding of two families,

where despite domestic differences and dissimilar political ideologies,

from Kohima border to Konkan coast and the freezing cold of Gangtok to the

perspiring heat of Kanyakumari,

soldiers guard the nation for that one common

anthem, one tri-colour flag, one proud country called India.

 

Bio: Brindha Vinodh is a poet, writer, literary critic, and a former copy editor. She is an Indian currently residing in Canada and is the recipient of Reuel Internation Prize for Poetry with an honourable mention, Poiesis Award International for excellence in poetry and the critic of the year for 2023 and 2024 in Destiny Poets, Wakefield, UK. Her debut poetry book, Autumn in America and other poems has been critically acclaimed.

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Setu, August 2025