Water from the icy heart of a river

May taste sweeter than bottled Bisleri’s,

The mountain air caressing the Himalayas

May feel softer than a tepid Savannah breeze,

Red-ribbed strawberries from different regions

May ripen and taste each quite distinctively,

But you still drink, you still breathe, you still eat.

A camel strutting across Saharan sands

May vary with the one from Kalahari,

The sun over the desert soil may beat down

Brighter than over a tropical canopy,

A monastery in Taxila may not

Resemble one that is Chinese,

That’s why tourists flock them all, equally, enthusiastically.

For without the differences that make them unique

The world won’t have anything of much worth to see;

The world won’t have what makes it worthwhile to be

Even us; for you see, it is laid bare in our identities –

That which separates all of me’s from we –

That what makes you so different from me.

And so I lie in an ageless wait and long for the day

When the world would have time to stand and spare

To look at me, at what I am and yet not care

A world where it doesn’t matter who I am

As long as you know that I am me and I can be.

– Akanksha Gupta