The Hidden Thread: What Traveling Taught Me About Being Indian

 Growing up, we are always taught how different every Indian state is. Textbooks, TV, and people around us constantly talk about our diversity—how languages change every few kilometers, how food habits are totally different, and how clothes and traditions vary from state to state. For a long time, I actually believed that people from different states had almost nothing in common except living in the same country.

That perspective really started to change when I moved to Hyderabad and began living in the South, along with traveling to different places. Moving to a new state makes you observe things much closely than a short trip does. Chatting with colleagues, neighbors, and people from all over India, you suddenly feel this strong, unsaid connection. Beneath all our different languages and daily habits, there is something silent yet powerful that binds us all together as Indians.

I felt this most during festival times while living here. Earlier, I used to think Durga Puja was strictly a Bengali festival, and Navratri was mostly a North Indian thing. But living in the South during this time opened my eyes—seeing streets decorated with lights, homes setting up traditional displays, and people worshipping the Goddess with the exact same heart and energy. It is the same story with harvest festivals—whether it is Sankranti, Pongal, or Bihu—or small traditions like eating Pachadi during the New Year, having Satuan, or paying respects to our ancestors on Mahalaya Amavasya. We might use different regional names, but living across these cultures makes you realize that at the end of the day, we are all celebrating the exact same feeling.

We Can Scan to Pay, So Why Not Scan to Trust?

 AI has changed how we work. Emails are drafted in seconds, reports are summarised, code is written faster, and customer queries get answered at any hour. Tasks that took days now take hours, and small teams can do the work of much larger ones. Efficiency and throughput have gone up, and work feels easier than ever. Yet when it comes to protecting people from basic, everyday risks, we still seem to be lagging.

Take the recent rabies vaccine scare in India. A batch of Abhayrab was declared substandard and potentially spurious after failing a potency test. The seized vials were not manufactured by Indian Immunologicals Ltd, according to the company and regulatory findings. The batch also showed inconsistencies in labelling, artwork, cap colour and licence details, and it failed a QR verification. This was not the first such case: the company had earlier reported counterfeit doses with same batch number. Rabies is almost always fatal once symptoms appear, so a fake vaccine can cost a life. Why should a patient have to trust blindly? We scan QR codes to pay for tea, so why not a simple, AI-powered app where anyone can scan a vaccine or medicine pack? The app could instantly confirm whether the batch is genuine and show the manufacturer, manufacturing date, expiry date and distribution details. It could flag duplicate codes, suspicious scan patterns and mismatched labels automatically. 

The same problem exists with food and medicines that need strict temperature control. Paneer, milk products, ice cream, vaccines and insulin can spoil or lose potency if they warm up even briefly during transport or a power failure. By the time the product reaches the retail shelf, it is cold again, and the customer has no idea the damage was done earlier. Why can't every packet carry a simple indicator that changes colour permanently once the safe temperature is breached? A tiny colour-changing label would let an ordinary buyer see at a glance whether the product is safe. Smart sensors and AI-based tracking could also monitor the whole cold chain and alert businesses before the product ever reaches a shop.

AI has made our work faster, and now it should make our lives safer, one scan and one colour-changing label at a time.