India, Aug. 14 -- Letter To My Country,

When my siblings and I were young, we saved the ribbed fancy sheets from imported chocolate boxes. A week before your birthday, Independence Day, we would paint them with orange and green bands, a blue wheel in the centre-our own handmade flags, fragile but fiercely ours.

On the morning of your birthday, we woke early for the flag hoisting, first at school and then with my father, often chief guest somewhere, accompanied by my mother, my siblings, and I in our best traditional clothes. After the flag went up and my father spoke in hesitant Hindi, we all stood singing the national anthem. Back then, you felt like a living presence.

In college, you became the subject of fiery debates-about brain dr...