Myriad

A land of villages, religions,

Festivals, shrines and youth.

From Narendra Modi to Rahul Gandhi

Pompous politics and piercing poverty

Everything you can find here

None can you fail to spot.

Bustling Bhojpuri to Kannadigas

To vulnerable Meithei and Mizo

Eight hundred and eighty languages

In twenty-nine states, packed with

Beliefs, attitudes, norms and karma.

From rooted misogyny to fierce feminism

Women politics and CEOs to glorified dowry

Everything was cultivated here

Things merged into sub-things

Goddesses worshipped, devadasis dismissed.

On caste commotion, Aryans blamed

Superior to suppress, fear of flame, exposure

These days, Brahmins also loud-speaker

Reservations, and more reservations

Youth only to sit back and bleat?

Lauded startups to screeching schools

Grinning faces of children, incandescent

Hope, hope do we

There subsists so many mores and folks

Who, when, where, and what do you

Find elsewhere which is so much here?