What is India? How do you define it? Tigers, bollywood, masala chai, technology, food, old India and new India, English etc. etc.? Yes, these are some of the keywords that jump to mind when you say India and we have posts covering all these keywords. Plus, salsa…si, salsa, you heard right.

We begin by taking a look on India's Independence Day.

August 15th marked the 60th year of India's independence, and bloggers wrote and celebrated the day in their own way. Deponti writes about independence day celebration in her apartment complex in Bangalore. She also writes, "We are, perhaps an old country, but as a democratic republic, we are 60 years old…and amazingly, the democracy works…. " She is right on how democracy works in India, a country with of over one billion people.

How has India changed in all these years? Biswanath Ghosh has a post on Old India, New India. How do the two India's co-exist? He writes, that the two India's have found a middle ground of sorts and that "the New Indian and the watchdogs of the Old India are allies in the Central Government…" Over in London, Shoefiend, remembers how they celebrated Independence in India. Makes for an interesting read.

One of the legacy that India inherited from the British was the English language. A Philosophical Skeptic's Musings has a post on English Mystified. He writes, "You have to isportingly spport (read as sportingly support) the growth of English language." What happens to English when it meets the various regional flavors of India….why you get some interesting changes.

From language we move to food. Mahanadi organized a food blog event to celebrate India's independence. Hop over to Mahanandi's post to see a list of what each one of these bloggers cooked up. You will be positively starved and probably want to whip up some interesting recipe yourself! Here is Lulu Loves London's recipes of tricolor rice.

Here is an interesting twist on blogs and food. There is a blog called "gimmeyourstuff" and I hope someone out there can fulfill this user's request to get him some masala chai. Masala chai anyone? Wait for the page to load and scroll way down to catch the post, way past some empty yellow stuff…

We switch tracks from food blogs and travel to an old town in the heartland of India. Pavan Gupta has a nice post on the old university town of Aligarh. Aligarh Muslim University has produced some fine scholars, writers and thinkers, and is one of the better known old universities of India.

From University town, we switch to technology. Kamz has a really nice post that explains and helps us understand the difference between Win Ce and Win Ce. Net? Why do you care? You should because mobile phones are proliferating the world over and mobile phones have their own version of operating system.

Salsa? Salsa en la India? Eso correcto. Si, verdad. That is right. You read it right. Salsa is the latest craze in India, and Sujatha writes about salsa in Bangalore. Amigos y amigas next we will have the Tango? Si?

Bollywood. We cannot leave without taking a quick peek at what bloggers had to say about movies, can we? So, here is Buddha Smiling's “full scoop" on KANK,the much talked and blogged about movie that opened in theatres last Friday.

Finally, here is a look at tigers of India. Wait. This is not in India, but at the Iowa State Fair. The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal had a couple of articles about state fairs in different parts of the USA, and how this trends appears to be fading away. While reading the articles I thought to myself if they would have any tigers or elephants from exotic India. Snake charmers are too exotic I thought and settled on tigers and elephants. And voila! here we have it ….tigers from India out in the middle of America (if Cincinnati can have its Bengals, Iowa can have its tigers!) Maybe these folks read my mind? Nah!