She Is India

They say patriotism is in uniforms, in parades, in salutes.
But I have seen it in her —
a woman walking alone at midnight,
holding her ground like it’s sacred soil,
refusing to shrink even when shadows try to swallow her.

Her bangles are battle drums,
her anklets, the march of a thousand revolutions.
Her eyes carry the monsoon’s rage,
her silence — the drought before the storm.

She is Rani of Jhansi, sword raised against centuries,
and the girl in a small town classroom,
learning laws so she can break the ones that break her sisters.
She is the pilot in the sky cutting through enemy lines,
the mother sending her son to war,
her own heart the first casualty.

Her love for India is not the kind they print on postcards.
It is the stubborn kind —
that keeps planting seeds in cracked earth,
keeps dreaming of a country
where no daughter learns to walk with keys between her fingers.

If you want to see my India,
don’t just look at the flag on the 15th of August.
Look for her in the crowd —
hair unbowed, eyes unafraid,
carrying both history and hope in her spine.

Because she is India.
Not a metaphor. Not an idea.
She is the soil, the sky,
and every heartbeat in between.
by Aadhya Awadhiya