I am starting this topic hoping to attract scholarly contributions from many like Keerthi, Ravi, Shashi, Arasi etc.
I just thought of this now. When we analyse the frequency of occurrence of similes and aesthetic concepts in Carnatic compositions, we see a pattern. As a start I am listing only some:
1. We like lotuses. Faces, eyes, torsos, palms, feet etc. all look like lotuses to us. Lotuses normally grow in ponds collecting rain water.
2. Our favourite skin colour is ivory fair, followed by green and dark rain cloud. We don't mind blood red for some gods.
3. We get up early. We see sunrise and the golden hue.
4. We love gold. Make it LOVE GOLD. (India was the largest producer of gold till the 19th century.) From Vedas to neopostindependence vaggeyakaras, some gold is always thrown in.
5. We refer a lot to feet and their beauty. We also refer a lot to dust. So... footwear was rare and also sometimes given away as a gift.
6. Our favourite gemstone was ruby. Diamonds were also important.
7. We liked big busty women and wide shouldered long armed men.
8. We have lots of poverty and misery. We either say we don't care for it or want to escape it so we want the gods to come at once to save us.
9. We think there are lots of bad people around. Sometimes they are vile men and often rakshasas.
10. We like our kings and princesses.
11. We constantly refer to family relationships among gods.
12. The highest post in the cosmogical beauracracy (something like viceroy) is Indra. He isn't a nice guy, but like some of our imperishable chief ministers, he wields enormous local influence.