Chapter 7 – The Republic Day Celebrations

First of all, India has two important days to celebrate as their national days, one - the republic day and two - the independence day. This was quite new to me as my understanding was that republic day would be when India gained its independence. How wrong was I...well this was another important fact learnt during my KIP trip.

My team Fiji had decided to wear our matching “bula” outfit for the celebration. We arrived near the India gate where the seats were allocated for us. It was a very cold and very crowded morning. This was quite new for me as back in my country we do not have such celebration. India’s flag was seen everywhere and patriotic songs were being played in the speakers all around. A lady was commentating each float as it passed through the main dice hence it gave us better information of what was going on.

There were so many floats. Soldiers marched with their bands. Camels, horses, bikes, tanks, fighter planes, and military trucks were all part of the possession. There were also quite a lot of floats that showed the journey of Gandhi Ji and his contributions to the early India. My favorite part out of all the day was seeing the planes as I have a craze for planes.

Seeing the love people had for their nation just gave me goosebumps. I also picked on a few lyrics of the patriotic songs and

sung along with the others. The celebrations ended with the release of air balloons carrying the Indian flag into the sky. The view was just breath taking. There were thousands of people present to witness the celebrations. One of our group member got lost in the large crowd but luckily he found his way straight to the bus.

I already had seen and heard a lot about the republic day celebrations in movies. This was the day the villains would plan a bomb attack. The tight security in real was no different to that in movies.