An essay on identity, transformation, and the power of a nation that is both ancient and ultra-modern. India is a land of paradoxes—a continent in miniature, a mosaic of languages, religions, cultures, and ideas. Anyone who experiences India today stands simultaneously in history and in the future. It is a place where thousand-year-old temples rise beside glass-and-steel tech towers, where digital payment systems are more advanced than in many Western countries, and where rit