REPUBLIC DAY PARADE - SOME RECOLLECTIONS

Watching the Republic Day Parade on TV this morning took me back to the ones I have personally witnessed over the years.

The first was in 1953 when Pitaji brought Mataji and me to Delhi from Jaipur to watch the parade. While they were sitting on chairs, I was on the durrie-covered ground along with other children. In those days, I was a rabid reader of a publication called Classics Illustrated, which was, as its name suggests, a classic novel or play summarised in illustrations, much like a comic. I must have read hundreds of them; in fact, I don't think I read any full volume of a Charles Dickens' or Alexandre Dumas' classic except through this way. On this occasion, I alternated between watching the parade and reading a Classic during the gaps between the numerous contingents and tableaux.

The 1965 parade had a smart and dashing Vinnie Mama leading the naval contingent. That was a matter of pride for us, the family. The next year, I was Flag Lieutenant, as we call an ADC in the Navy, to Air Marshal R Rajaram, Commandant, National Defence College, and accompanied him for a centrestage view of the parade. The mood that year was sombre as we had just lost Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri in Tashkent after signing a peace accord with Pakistan following the 1965 war. That was the only year till 2021 that we had no foreign chief guest. In 2021 and 2022, it was Covid that kept a chief guest away but thankfully, this year we are back to normal with President Abdeh Fattah Al Sisi of Egypt gracing the occasion.

I had two postings in Naval Headquarters and witnessed the parade in 1975 with Akhila and in 1981 and '82 with her, Ruchir and Shumita. That was followed by witnessing Beating Retreat as well.

Prior to the arrival of TV, it was the running commentary on All India Radio that kept us abreast of the proceedings of a parade. Prominent commentators were Melville de Mellow in English whose surname best describes his deep, soothing voice and, in Hindi, the equally fluent and prolific Jasdev Singh who incidentally hailed from Jaipur and Mummy knew well. Now, on TV, the emphasis is more on the visual than the audio.

To get back to '53 and Classics Illustrated. The morning after the parade, there was a snippet in the Hindustan Times, the newspaper everyone in Delhi read those days, that there was a kid who was more interested in following the exploits of Superman through his comic than the goings-on in the parade. I have a sneaking suspicion that the reporter had spotted me though he was wrong about the comic.

P.S. My friend Premvir reminded me of the fact that in the old days, the President used to arrive for the parade in a six-horse buggy. After 1984, following Mrs. Gandhi's assassination, this practice was stopped for security reasons. Briefly, President Pranab Mukherjee returned to the buggy by using it for Beating Retreat ceremony in 2016 and other functions and President Kovind followed suit. President Murmu has been using the big black limousine to perform the functions. Maybe the buggy is now gone forever.