Beating Retreat pays tribute to Chandrayaan
New Delhi, January 29
The Beating Retreat ceremony that marked the culmination of 75th Republic Day celebrations paid a tribute to the Chandrayaan. Besides, separately marching bands created a formation to depict Mahatma Gandhi.
The event played only Indian tunes and musical notes of ‘Kadam Kadam Badhaye Ja’ and ‘Aye Mere Watan Ke Logon’. It ended with the ever-popular tune of ‘Sare Jahan se Acha’.
Band members, in a choreographed performance, recreated the historic landing of the Vikram lander on the Moon through their marching formations.
The music bands of the Indian Army, Indian Navy, Indian Air Force and Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) played 31 tunes.
The ceremony began with the massed band’s ‘Shankhnaad’ tune, which was followed by the enthralling tunes such as ‘Veer Bharat’, ‘Sangam Dur’, ‘Deshon ka Sartaj Bharat’, ‘Bhagirathi’, and ‘Arjuna’ by Pipes and Drums band.
‘Beating the Retreat’ traces its origins to the early 1950s, when Major Roberts of the Indian Army indigenously developed the unique ceremony of display by the massed bands. It marks a centuries-old military tradition, when the troops ceased fighting, sheathed their arms, withdrew from the battlefield and returned to the camps at sunset at the sounding of the Retreat. Colours and Standards were cased and flags lowered at this time.
President Droupadi Murmu arrived at the venue in the traditional ‘buggy’. Vice-President Jagdeep Dhankhar, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh also attended the event at Vijay Chowk here.
