Ashoke Kumar Seth

I am an Indian, and everyone says I lack civic sense. They can overturn cars, burn streets, and vandalize a city after a championship game. I dance at an airport excited about my first foreign trip, and suddenly I am the face of poor civic sense. I am an Indian, and everyone says I steal jobs. They move factories across oceans, shift profits through tax havens, and automate entire industries overnight. I study, compete, earn a visa, work 18 hours a day, sometimes multiple jobs and somehow I am the one stealing jobs and scamming the system. I am an Indian, and everyone says I am everywhere. I build your software, treat your illness, teach your children, drive your taxis, and open your stores. The world became a village, yet my presence remains a problem. I am an Indian, and everyone says I am too loud. The evening news screams outrage. Political rallies shake entire cities. The internet echoes with anger day and night. I celebrate a wedding, a festival, a victory, and I am told my joy is too loud. I am an Indian, and everyone says I smell of curry. The world smells of gunpowder, of hatred, of division, of endless arguments about race and religion. I carry the fragrance of spices from my grandmother's kitchen, and somehow that is what offends. I am an Indian, and everyone says I have no culture. I come from a civilization that counted the stars when much of the world was still learning maps. I speak languages older than nations. I celebrate hundreds of traditions, yet I am told I have no culture. I am an Indian, and everyone says I am backward. I send missions to the Moon. I build vaccines for millions. I run companies across continents. Yet a viral video of one fool becomes evidence against a billion people. I am an Indian, and everyone says I worship celebrities. I celebrate my favorite actor's success with flowers, music, and a few glasses of milk. Others worship influencers who sell outrage, turn every disagreement into a battlefield, and every opinion into a war. Yet my celebration is the one that makes headlines. I am an Indian, and everyone says I gather in crowds. We walk together in processions, celebrating our faith, our culture, our traditions. Everyone is welcome. No shops are looted. No neighborhoods are burned. No one is threatened for thinking differently. We sing. We dance. We pray. And somehow our gathering becomes the problem. I am an Indian, and everyone says I bring my culture everywhere. I light a lamp in a foreign land. I wear a saree in the snow. I teach my children the language of their grandparents. Others build walls between neighbors, argue endlessly over identity, and forget where they came from. Yet I am told I should leave my culture behind. I am an Indian, and everyone says I live in the past. But my past gave me yoga, mathematics, philosophy, meditation, and the idea that the world is one family. The future keeps borrowing from my past, while telling me to be embarrassed by it. I am an Indian, and everyone says I should be ashamed. Ashamed of my accent. Ashamed of my food. Ashamed of my festivals. Ashamed of my traditions. Ashamed of existing. But I am not ashamed. I am the child of farmers and philosophers, scientists and saints, workers and dreamers. I come from a land that taught the world that truth can be many-sided, that all paths deserve respect, and that the entire world is one family. Yes, we have flaws. Every nation does. But judge me by my actions, not by your stereotypes. For I am an Indian. And before you tell me what is wrong with me, look honestly at what you have normalized in yourself. For I am an Indian. The world may mock my accent, question my customs, laugh at my celebrations, and judge me through a thousand stereotypes. Yet I stand tall. For I belong to a civilization older than empires, a culture richer than prejudice, and a people whose spirit refuses to bend. Jai Hind