times, people like Ravi Shankar have taken Indian music to the West and thus bridged the gap between the music of the East and the West.

    Other significant features of India's cultural unity are the variety, colour and the emotional richness of its dances. The country abounds in tribal dances, old-dances as well as classical dances of great virtuosity. Throughout India, dance is regarded not merely as an accompaniment to social intercourse, but also as a mode of aesthetic expression and spiritual realization.

    The great symbol of dance is Shiva, the Cosmic Dancer, depicted in sculpture and poetry as Nataraja. Similarly, the classical theatre in India has a history of more than two thousand years. It was performed in palaces and in temples. The classical plays combined music and dance. Tragedy was, and is, still discouraged otherwise; the range of themes covered is wide.

    It is this strand of cultural unity running through the country that we are heir to, and to which people in the West are increasingly turning now. It is up to the younger generation to uphold this torch of cultural unity for the rest of the world to see, follow and emulate, and not get dazed by the superficial prosperity and material achievement of the West, where man has set foot on the Moon in his quest for space travel, but finds himself isolated in his own society and community.

ethnic (adj)    :    connected with / belonging to a nation, race or people that shares a cultural tradition

myriad (adj)    :    an extremely large number of

babel (n)    :    the sound of many voices talking at a time

penetrate (v)    :    go into / through

discern (v)    :    to know / recognize or understand