Independence Day!

As you may have already known, the 15th of August is Independence Day here in India. It's been 61 years since the country became free from British rule. One of the traditions here at Woodstock school is to have a flag-raising ceremony to mark the event. This was quite a bit different from the “have a barbeque and blow some stuff up” attitude at most American independence celebrations. At 9:30 this morning, the whole school gathered around the flagpole.

The event began with some singing by a choir made up of mostly Indian staff members. The first song was Vande Mataram, the national song of India. This is, of course, distinct from Jana Gana Mana, the national anthem. We’ve included a short clip of the staff singing the first song.

After this song, we had an excellent speech by a Woodstock board member that has been all over the world studying and practicing law. She asked us to think about the freedom we have and what we can do with it. After the short speech, we all watched a student raise the flag and then we sang the national anthem. We would have taken some video of that, but tradition says that one stand at attention with their arms at their side during the anthem. We had a hard enough time remembering the words. The whole occasion was very formal everyone was wearing their best clothes including us:

our friends:

and our students:

After the ceremony, we all went down to the quad area of the school. A big tarp had been pulled over it to offer some protection from the ever-present monsoon rains and there were several tables set up with food. These were local vendors from Mussoorie who had come up to the school to serve up some traditional Indian fare. It was all very tasty. These included naan—fresh from the tandoor ovens, a fried potato patty that we think is called tikki, mutton and vegetarian momos, and masala dosa.

After the festivities of the morning, we went home and took a nap. After Beth baked some cookies, we went over to our friends house to watch Lage Raho Munna Bhai. This is a movie about an underworld goon in Bombay that is visited by the spirit of Mahatma Gandhi. It sounds very bizarre, but it was very funny and very appropriate for this holiday. So while we missed some of the bombs bursting in air, it was a very nice independence celebration.

Dave and Beth