On Monday, we were fortunate enough to get "VIP" passes to Beating Retreat, which is one of the closing ceremonies for Republic Day in India. The bands for each of the three branches of the military service, Army, Navy, and Air Force, get together and put on a show, each one trying to out-do the others. The ceremony was quite the spectacle, though rather thinly attended, which surprised us. Apparently George Clooney was in the crowd and in the cheap seats, like us, but we didn't see him...quel dommage. I was sure that he was in Delhi just to celebrate my birthday, but perhaps not....The Indian military did a bang-up job on the great band-off. There were three full brass marching bands and a huge group of bagpipers, complete with plaid uniforms. From a distance, it looked much like something you would see in the states, however, touches of the exotic definitely shone through - the camels lining the ramparts of the government buildings, leopard skins thrown over the shoulder of the drum corps, and regional costumes integrated with the marching band uniforms. On the whole, very impressive. I think my favorite part was when all
three bands lined up together and played. Halfway through the tune, the conductor lowered the volume of the marching bands, and directed someone playing a carillon from the twin campaniles of the Indian government buildings. Just beautiful. It reminded me a lot of the Stanford Hymn, and I found myself humming "from the foothills to the Bay. . . ," as we left the performance. The finale was pretty good too - they lit up all of the government buildings as Heather said, "like Tivoli gardens." I said, "or like the Disneyland Electrical Parade," at which point she informed me that Disneyland's light show is based on Tivoli Gardens. "Ooohhhh. . . ."
No comments:
Post a Comment