New Delhi, Aug. 2 -- It looked and smelled like many other Indian markets. I could smell the jackfruit and guava, ripe and intoxicating. Women sold strands of white jasmine flowers and pink lotuses. A man was hawking a pile of multicoloured "Jockey" briefs of questionable provenance. The orange-yellow mangoes, a little longer and more lissome than I was used to, looked like the genuine article however. A goat nibbled at flower garlands strung around the front of a three-wheeler till the irate owner delivered a kick to its rear end. It all felt very familiar, yet I felt a stranger in my own country.

I understood nothing anyone was saying around me. In the bustling marketplace of Trichy everyone seemed to speak Tamil. Even the signs were m...