Dancers and musicians are fusing Indian and American art forms to come up with something new and distinct. The 50th anniversary of Indian independence affords a kind of stock-taking among many of those who chose to journey overseas. In California, at least, there's reflection on the past and exuberance about the future. In his office one recent day, Ramachandran fired off quick images of his native Madras, a large city in southern India. There is a doctor in medical school who could diagnose illness by listening to a patient's gait.
Myths coexist with mathematics.
Gods are worshipped alongside Nobel Prize winners. There's no modern India. If you blend them, it's wonderful. Indians take pride in their parliamentary democracy, vigorously upheld in a world where countries with far fewer problems remain stifled by autocracy. A huge gap has emerged between the new India of high technology and the old India of the bullock cart.