This year, I am happy that I attended both the Republic Day Parade and The Beating Retreat Ceremony. Till around 1992 ie., 18 years back, these events used to be a family's must watch on TV/live. With the boom in television programming channels, the interest for this event reduced just like many other shows which used to be an occassion when the family gets together. Similar to the trend, for many years, Republic Day became just a holiday for me as well when I could sleep till late but not so for parents though. They still enjoyed watching the parade. It was only a few years back when I actually started thinking about this event and the significance that it holds vis-a-vis the changing culture, interests and ideologies of the society. Today when we talk about such achievements or events, the reactions by many young people including a generation previous to me is that of sarcasm and cynicism. Even though there is no smoke without fire but the fact is that for many of them, especially the younger generation, this cynicism comes as a "learned" attribute only. Criticizing and constant comparisons with other countries (especially west) on various parameters primarily civic in nature has been the order of the day and would probably remain so for some time.
Whatever be it, I feel that simply being a part of the audience watching the proceedings and cheering for them makes me a tiny part of our huge entity. At the same time, I feel that the problems affect me as much as I have the little potential to bring in some change towards cleaning up being a part of the group. Isn't it the problem that the human race is facing in totality and not just any single country ?
The little things that made my day were the sights of small kids who were enjoying their little picnic and at the same time asking their parents for details about whatever they were seeing. The aged set of people who were in the audience had a mixed look of pride, nostalgia, patriotism and a certain concern for the results of whatever they dreamt about. I remember seeing a very old gentlemen with a walking stick. He was wearing a tattered blazer with a label reflecting some sort of Indian representation. He had a rather shabby track pants and an old pair of shoes without socks and a hat. I saw him sitting till the very end of the proceedings and walked slowly in the crowd to finally disappear from my sight. I still wonder about his life and his thoughts at that age, wherein he attended the entire parade while he was in the midst of all sorts of crisis viz., poverty, old age and without support/company. Well....I was sitting in the section where there were lot of senior defence personnel from our country and abroad. Our section was diagonally opposite to the President's section. I was slightly disappointed at the end wherein I saw all the Senior Defence Personnel walking out with their families like quite a lot of civilians saying that the show is over. It was just about to get over and there was still the National Anthem to be played in barely 2-3 minutes time and more importantly the President (Supreme Commander) was yet to leave. I am not trying to make a big issue out of it but...whatever...nevermind.
At the Beating Retreat, my parents were also with me. When the Rashtrapati Bhawan got illuminated, the excitement of people and the gleam I saw in my parent's eyes were 'Priceless'. All n all the Beating Retreat seemed to be more of a family affair along with the President, where people were cheering a good show.
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