SAREE & The RD Parade

26th January, the Republic day is of great significance to us. For the independent citizens of India, in the year 2021, we are going to celebrate our 72nd Republic Day.

It is a grand national festival and a huge event for the country with all eyes glued to the television sets watching the famous Republic Day parade that takes place on this day. The marching by the contingents starts from the Rashtrapati Bhavan along the Rajpath and ends at India gate. The beauty is to also witness different parades and performances by the Indian Military - Indian Navy, Army, Air force, and of course NCC.

The beautiful representations of culture & technology, one can also view the Parades by floats from different states and union territories which represent the their culture, their traditions, and their values in front of the whole world.
It is a dream for every Indian to march at Rajpath but there are only a few lucky ones who get to experience that.

Did you know that a rigorous training takes place nearly for a year before the cadets/ representatives are selected for the RD Parade !

Today, we’d like to share an interesting observation from the eyes of our co-founders Kavea & Ramya who were selected to represent Andhra Pradesh in 1998 on our 50th republic Day celebration.
A year full of rigorous camps & sleepless nights, waking up at 5AM to march past around the grounds, an unforgettable bootcamp of sorts that instilled discipline and confidence to compete with lakhs of other state cadets to be the chosen few for the main Delhi camp. Now this story is for another day . Today is about celebrating the cultural side of the cadets from different states at the RD camp in Delhi.

So picture this- During the 6PM Roll call, all the state contingents had to assemble and a count was done which would add ti the total tally of marks for the overall Trophy.

During the roll call, it was a compulsion to wear the state attire and we from the AP contingent received classic ponchampalli sarees including blazers while the boys got the stunning formal suit. These sarees are made in the Yadadri Bhuvanagiri district, Andhra Pradesh (now Telangana), India. They have traditional geometric patterns in the Ikat style of dyeing. We were thrilled about it because it was the women cadets who brought in the cultural representation through our sarees. Guess what, just like us, women from different states chose different cultural outfits, women from the Punjab contingent got beautiful Patiala suits, West Bengal girl cadets wore their powerful Red and White sarees. Tripura cadets wore their signature tripura weaves, Gujrat contingent had the girl cadets wear their Bandhini saree, Tamil Nadu cadets wore Kanjeevarams, Karnataka girl cadets wore mysore silk sarees in the Coorgi drape and the Kerala girl cadets wore the beautiful kasuvu drape.

If there was a drone shot for this , it would have a been a stunning Rangoli in Indian colors truly filled with pride and happiness.

So this 26th January we hope you are glued to the TV screens just like us as we witness an array of unmatchable heritage marching with discipline & great joy.