A slice of India's culture in Rajpath, Delhi

Have you ever been to a stadium to watch cricket match? Could you see any action play closely? You can’t see any wide angle shots, not even a bird’s eyes view. No on-screen statistics is visible and most even you don’t get to see, from close, the players you revere. But there must be a feeling of being there - right at the place where all the actions are happening…and of course the satisfaction of being at a place where not everyone can easily manage to be. Same level of feeling we had, when we received the entry ticket for Republic Day Parade Live.

Many of our friends told us, it would be an experience we would never forget; so our excitement was pretty high. We woke up at 3:00 AM. After having a hurried but ‘heavy’ breakfast we started off…it was chilling cold out there. We were feeling sleepy but certainly excited.

We reached Khan Market Car Parking Area by 6:15AM. After parking car we started walking. Our fingers were searching some warm shelter in small pockets of our denims. I was feeling irritation on my nose caused due to cold. It took more than one hour to reach the great Rajpath. Security was beefed up at every 20 miles till the end point.

On the way we saw, big Indian e-tailers had come up with their own discount themes offering big bang R-Day sale up to 80-90 per cent. I don’t know how many eyeballs they could gain finally.
Let’s come to the topic. After 4-5 rounds of showing the ticket and proof of identity, getting frisked and passing through the metal detector gate, we finally reached the sitting zone. The seats were half wet and dirty due to water droplet because of cold. We somehow managed to sit there. After 45 minutes, leaving the chair seat back, we went to carpet sitting area. It is hardly 4-5 meters from the road where the marching cavalry was passing by from the place we sat.

We all were feeling sleepy, fingers were frozen but our heart was thumping. We saw many people including foreigners wearing a tri colours rosette. Patriotic tunes mingled with the chirping of morning birds. It sort of plunged me into a true feeling of being Indian.

The show started with the arrival of our President and the chief guest French President Francois Hollande. Both of them waved us from a small distance. We then heard the rhythmic “dum dum dum” of the drums, the bold voice of parade commander (I mean the leader of parade group). The sound of their favourite marching tune “Kadam, Kadam, Badhaye Ja” suddenly lifted my entire being.

Now you all already know about what normally happens in the parade, so I’m skipping all that. The show was ended with air-force flights drill. After that the orange, white and green coloured balloons rose from all around us and slowly made their way up, in a way, taking India to the sky.