Harish Anjuman stands at Habitat Studios in Mumbai, reciting a poem to an eager audience. But on an ordinary day, his life and his comrades’ lives aren’t quite so serene.

That is because Anjuman is a soldier in the Indian Navy. And his recitation captures and conveys some of what goes on in the minds of his fellow soldiers in the armed forces, to whom his poem (video above) is dedicated.

As the title of the poem, Har Fauji Sarhad Par, suggests, every soldier is always at the border. But no matter what the challenge, says Anjuman, secularism lies at the heart of the armed forces. ‘I’m a Hindu, and next to me is a Muslim,’ he declares. A timely reminder, if there ever was one.