Market days have been an integral part of the Bhumia, Paroja and Gond way of life for a long time, though the products they vend have changed with time in some aspects. Even though they live in the forest, cut off from the world of technology and formal market forces, these tribal people have managed to establish the basic tenets of self-reliance and individual enterprise. Such tribal markets are the mainstays of local economies across the length and breadth of India.

The wise old woman smiled with knowing eyes at me. She went out in the middle of the snowstorm and got some fresh snow in her fist. Putting the snow and her prayer beads in my hand, she said a prayer and then began to explain something. According to the interpretation given to me, she was saying, ‘the human mind is highly evolved and capable and believes that it can subjugate nature. But nature is all powerful. It was here before the first man and the first woman and it will be here later. Nature is divine and when we live life ordained by the divine then we seldom go wrong.’

Stories and objects of our ancestry have a special place in our psyche. Don’t we all have that one sari, painting, carpet, book or piece of old furniture that we inherited from our ancestors and which we hold very dear? Every Indian household will have stories of its own family heritage. Every village will have its own traditions around its monuments or crafts. Every region or state will have its own unique civilizational heritage.The sheer diversity of India’s heritage attracts people from across the world.

The next day, we visited the Samaguri Satra and were treated to an enthralling theatrical performance by one of the Bhakats depicting a story from the Ramayana. Using different masks, he played different characters for us. One of his fellow Bhakats was busy giving finishing touches to a mask, and we asked him what motivated him to commit to a specific artistic tradition with such dedication. He replied almost instantaneously, ‘It is through these creative pursuits that we are able to discard the mundane and access the realm of divinity. The arts allow us to shed our identity and become part of a collective that is in pursuit of the divine.’ I couldn’t have agreed with him more.

Although people celebrate Basant Panchami popularly as a festival to herald the spring, many Hindus across India also worship Goddess Saraswati on this day, and children are made to write their first words or say their first hymns on this day. In many schools, students worship Saraswati and perform rituals. The goddess is often depicted holding a book and a veena. Some Buddhist traditions celebrate Saraswati as the goddess of music. The festival and some of its rituals are a reminder that revering knowledge is an ancient Indian tradition.

There are many cultures that have rich culinary traditions, but Indian cuisine has a richness of diversity and taste that is quite special. The same lentil has varied preparations across the country and every community has its own version of a roti or a vegetable dish. Sweets and savouries, pickles and chutneys, too, vary in preparation, and are prepared with unique ingredients in different parts of the country. In India, food is a powerful medium through which we convey our emotions, beliefs and traditions. Our food preparations and habits are also rooted in a deep and ancient science, ensuring a good and healthy life.

Women in villages and towns across Tamil Nadu participate in kolam competitions, where streets and households compete for the best kolam awards in their localities. Kolam is a deeply personal experience, an offering of beauty for the community. Often, the women who do kolam daily share their emotions through this art. It is an expression of personal beauty that transforms a threshold into a doorway of auspicious beginnings. Transient though it may be, this long-standing tradition also constitutes a daily ritual of cleansing and beautification.

Health and wellness, although intricately linked, are different states of being. Health is a disease-free state of the physical body, whereas wellness is the holistic state of a person’s physical, emotional, intellectual, social and even occupational wellbeing. It is not possible to achieve wellness without good health, but it is also not possible to have good health without focusing on wellness.

For, as long as we can remember, India has had the ability to take different threads and assimilate them into a unique fabric that is its own. It is akin to the power of an alchemist engaged in a magical transformation. This inherent power to assimilate stems from our civilizational values of trust, openness and exploration. It is our gift and our superpower.

What delighted me most was that the Suleiman Charitra is a fine example of how medieval Indians approached inclusion. It reaffirmed my belief that inclusion is our way and not an import we got from someone or someplace else. It is our inherent strength. Despite sectarian and communal forces acting wilfully time and again to tear the national fabric, we continue to express our Power of Inclusion in a myriad ways.

That is the kind of individualization that India needs—where individuals call upon their own superpowers to empower the collective. We need more Indians like Mark who enrich the oceanic circle while fulfilling their own individual destinies with their intrinsic power of self-actualization. That is when we will row the raft of the republic in sync with the flow of our civilization. Doing so will not just unleash the individual potential of millions of Indians but will also pave the way for a new framework for democracy—a framework seeded with Indian values but one the world can embrace too.

Interestingly, from Tilak and Bose to Gandhi, every one of our Independence struggle leaders called upon this power of community for the cause of India’s freedom. Therefore, we may surmise that the Power of Community is deeply seeded in our tenets as a civilization. The Khalsa of the Sikhs and the Sanghas of the Buddhists are fine examples of it. So are the Satras of Assam and the dargahs of sufi saints like Hazrat Nizamuddin.