Love that defines

It is a rare feat, one I've almost never come across, to be able to capture India, or a corner of it: for the whole magnitude of it is merely impossible. It is further rarefied to be able to tell everything in a matter of minutes and leave countless stories untold: to go deep into one man's consciousness and show him what he is composed of, amidst the flying accusations and erudite theories, of what all he was and still is, of how the Marina sparkles as I sit for hours on its wide expanse of sand looking at the stormy Bay of Bengal for hours on end, feeling the humid Madras sun. It is all that the latest "Royal Enfield: Handcrafted in Chennai" ad manages to do, another ad that proves how India excels head and shoulders above the rest in the advertising world, but also that goes so much beyond.

My love for Tamil Nadu is synonymous with my love for life; both commenced very early. Even though I do not know Tamil, and there are many more things that I, the uninitiated, do not know, it has never bothered me: when I am there, I know from inside that I am there. The soil, the air, the sun, the smell. Every being inside me cries with delight, and every me is moved to beauty, to the contemplation of beauty. What tells me I am there? All modern scientific theories seem so ridiculous besides that knowing: I pity them; they will be always at a loss to know the worth knowing.

Tamil Nadu, on overt looks, is a land of men and women very simply clad, especially men: checked shirts not inserted in the pants, and of course lungis. A land where both religion and atheism has its rigid rituals and many men and women are bound by them: to sway the populace to the latter, a leader would strike a deity with a chappal and laugh, and ask did something happen to me? The land where films with strange pyrotechnical fights and dances rule the hearts, and the actors are more dearly loved than gods, because the latter are feared more than loved.

But Tamil Nadu is so much more to me. It is liberty itself; the sense of vastness and an open earth and open seas is everywhere. In the luckier days, you could have gone to Tharangambadi and felt man as an outpost of nature: behind, the desolate Danish mansions of the first missionaries to India, and ahead beautiful ruins of a temple or two. Besides, a honest face who is trying to make sense of the world and an intelligent mind, selling you conch shells picked early morning. And yourself: in a world which is not uniform, which does not apportion you theories to follow and isms to join and sophies to debate about, but which directly enters your heart and makes you understand all its beauty. The world where religion is completely absent, unless you call the unflinching humidity everywhere except in the mountains by that name. Architectural marvels rise here as commonplace as every stone's throw, and every road of Mylapore rings with music: from temples equally as from vocalists practising and learning. In the harmony is that disharmony brought by the British - ideas of nation and state, ideas of career and English; and yes, the Enfield - but India has the unique ability to dissolve everything in itself but not to lose itself. And thus to create only more of richer nuances and novel ways of expression. The people are too many, the diversity is too great and the minds are too intelligent; how would you make a robot, whether mechanical or intelligent word spewing one, out of a Hindu?

Tourism ads are meant to please, and nowadays one is pleased when things are adapted for them; thereby, those ads automatically go against the grain of India. Hence, it is not an accident that the ad had to be that of a motorcycle, Royal Enfield - the oldest continuing motorcycle brand of the world. I would simply say that the ad is flawless and I thank the maker for it. Love of the earth, for when you love, it is always there: forgetting the receiving, you have to give, and it is in you and with you, it never takes you for a ride. It is the truest for every day comes with a new sun and a new storm, and every day must you woo.

You may watch the ad, if you have not already done so, here: http://www.royalenfield.com/community/handcrafted-in-chennai.aspx or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goOu4aNsOKU