The Idea of India*

Rudyard Kipling loved India as no other country. He loved the diversity of India, "the world's only democracy" he called it, the dizzying multitude of castes, religions, nationalities, languages--identities. In a page and a quarter, a conversation aboard a train, these speakers:

A burly Sikh...
A Hindu Jat...
An Amritzar courtesan...
A fat Hindu...
...a young Dogra...

*A book by the same name that I read many years ago.