On Parade!

There I was, sitting on a train, minding my own business.  I was admiring the passing Indian countryside between typing notes on my computer - taking advantage of the smooth, slow train ride to squeeze in some work time.  A young Indian teenager suddenly took the seat across from me.  He looks at me, and then looks at the newspaper he is holding.  Back to me.  Back to the paper.  Then he points at an article in the paper.  To be precise, this article:

'Foreigners join Republic Day Festivities'. 

Turns out it's pretty hard to be a foreigner in a small town and not attract quite a bit of attention.  Depending on the location in India, you are either unnoticed or bombarded with attention.  Such was the case the morning of Republic Day.  We got a special invite to join some local friends and watch a small town parade.  As we approached the parade grounds, tractors pulling floats filtered in from farms and side streets. 

We past the parking at the open air-stadium, and continued straight into the stadium; there were foreigners in the car!  The car pulled up right next to the floats.  We got out, and angry looks melted into inquisitive ones.  Dragged by the arm away from the floats, we went straight through the middle of the field.  Through the ranks of soldiers lined up in formation with guns, in full regalia.  The ranks parted, not with angry faces.  The soldiers all got out their cell phones and started taking pictures.  Some even posed with us! 

In a whirlwind, we had been through the ranks, introduced to this person and that, met journalists, and were suddenly, in the parade.  Behind the tractor with the education float, aside the girls riding bicycles in formation, we walked slowly around the stadium precisely once, starting after the soldiers also performed precisely one round of the stadium in front of the large, enthusiastic crowd.

Ah yes… on parade!