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Beating Retreat attempts Indian-Western blend, but doesn't always work
On a sunny evening, under a clear blue sky, with a bracing breeze
fluttering the tricolour, 1,000 bandsmen of the Indian armed forces
brought music alive on Thursday at the Beating Retreat ceremony which
brings the curtain down on the four-day Republic Day celebrations.
Over
time, there have been innumerable changes in the selection of music for
the occasion but this year's ceremony was exceptional in that 20 of the
23 tunes were by Indian composers and here lies the rub: Not all the
tunes could be classified as marches and to that extent, they took away
much of the military aspect.
Thus, while debutants “Vir
Bharatâ€, “Chhana Bilauriâ€, “Jai Janam Bhumi†and “Athulya Bharat†were
rousing enough and served their purpose, “Anandloke†sounded more like a
lullaby than the slow march it was supposed to be.
Then, the
“Dashing Desh†fusion began with a lone flute and with clarinets,
bassoons, saxophones, trumpets and drums joining in before yielding to
the flute -- a work more appropriate for a concert hall than for the
grand Vijay Chowk square at the foot of the Raisina Hill where the
Beating Retreat ceremony is held.
Then, “Glorious India†opened as fanfares should but then went into what could be loosely called a dance number.
What did work was the experimental “Salaam to the Soldiers†slow march, interspersed with strains of “Aae Mere Watan ke Logonâ€.
Still,
this is not to detract from the magnificence of the hour-long ceremony,
which began with the arrival in state of President Pranab Mukherjee, to
be received by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Defence Minister Manohar
Parrikar, his deputy Rao Inderjit Singh and the three service chiefs.
The
massed bands then made their entry with a soul-stirring version of
“Deshon Ka Sartaj Bharat†that never fails to bring on the goose
pimples.
At the bottom line, the Beating Retreat ceremony is
about more than just music - while this is its raison d'etre. There's
the precision marching, the intricate patterns created and the precise
timing, with much of the music being played without a conductor.
The
other fascinating feature of the ceremony is that the bulk of the
bandsmen would have been village lads when they signed up and would
perhaps never have seen a musical instrument barring perhaps a flute
made out of a reed.
Such is the expertise of the armed forces
that they are not only able to hone these lads into soldiers but also
expert musicians.
And then, there were the uniforms. While the
Indian Army's bandsmen were in olive green or black trousers and white
anklets, their tunics dazzled in a range of colours from red to olive
green to orange to purple - and with gold-trimmed matching headgear and
waistbands.
In contrast, the musicians from the Indian Navy and
the Indian Air Force were elegant in their simplicity - the former in
black tunics and trousers, white anklets and caps and black and white
waistbands and the latter similarly in blue.
By now, the sun was
slowly going down, bathing the sky in bright orange and this was the cue
for the mass bands to advance for one last time.
Major Girish
Kumar U, the principal conductor of the ceremony, led the bandsmen
through the eternally haunting “Abide With Meâ€, favourite of Mahatma
Gandhi with the bells in the belfry of the North Block etching out the
theme before returning it to the massed bands.
Major Girish Kumar
sought the president's permission to conclude the ceremony, the Retreat
was sounded, the tricolour was lowered - by a woman officer - and the
bands exited - to what else but “Saare Jahan Se Aachaâ€.
The last
of the bandsmen had barely crested the hills when tens of thousands of
bulbs on Rashtrapati Bhavan, the North and South Blocks that flank it,
Parliament House, Rail Bhavan and Air Headquarters came alight, bathing
the scene with an ethereal beauty.
It was time to go home and hopefully return a year later - such is the pull of the event.
For
the record, 15 Indian Army brass and 18 pipes and drums bands, as also
one each from the Indian Navy and the Indian Air Force, participated in
the ceremony.
Subedar Suresh Kumar was the conductor of the
Indian Army brass bands. Subedar Mitter Dev led the pipes and drums,
while the buglers performed under Subedar Prabhakaran.
The Indian Navy and the Indian Air Force bands were under the baton of Master Chief Petty Officer (Musician-I) Ramesh Chand.
Beating
Retreat owes its origins to an ancient custom when warring armies would
call a halt to fighting at sundown, case colours and standards and
lower flags to attend to the wounded, and eat and rest.
The
present ceremony dates to the early 1950s when Major Roberts of the
Indian Army developed this unique display by the massed bands.