I still can’t believe that I woke up here one day. How could this be India? How could a place be so many paradoxes all at once? How could it be ruthless, and romantic? Or overwhelming yet also calm? Or aggravating here and inspirational there?

It must be the sheer vastness of it all. 3.3 million square kilometers. 1.2 billion people. All making up one country that’s everything you can possibly sense. It really is multiple worlds in one. And for a single morning in January, the world I just happened to be in saw the softness of the sun’s first light. The darkness peeled away, from the trees in front of the balcony to the mountains in the distance.

I can’t remember if the birds had been singing the whole time. But I recall only hearing them when the sunrise spread across the land.