In step with MoM

Sandhya, who is in Class XI, usually has to reach school by 7 am — that gives her an hour and a half to rustle up breakfast and lunch for her family, help her younger sister (in Class IX) Shweta and brother Samarth (Class VI) get ready for school and hop into her father’s car to get dropped to school. That’s been her routine since last year, when her mother, who works with a beauty parlour chain, got transferred to Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala. Her mother is now here on a short visit, but Sandhya sticks to her routine. Today, she has to reach school by 6.30 am. What has her hassled is the bun she has to tie — “neatly”, as her teacher told her.

In school, the 16-year-old will change into her shimmering orange suit and her teachers will help her wear some make-up — highlight her eyes with silver eyeshadow and line her hair with some silvery beads. At 7 am, the school bus will take them to Rajpath for the rehearsal. Besides their Mangalyaan dance-drill, there are other performances too, on themes such as ‘Swachch Bharat Abhiyan’ and ‘Yuva Shakti’.

At school, Sandhya meets her “best friends” Priyanka Ojha, dressed in a golden overall, and Vandana Mathur, who has turned up in orange. Only Rashika Arora is in her uniform. “She can’t dance at all, so she’s not part of the show,” laughs Sandhya. The girls are all from the commerce stream.

They soon get on to the bus. It’s still chilly and foggy, but the morning nip has been long forgotten as the girls giggle and share jokes. “I love my friends the most in the world,” Sandhya declares, before switching back to the day’s agenda. “The bus ride to Rajpath is fun. We really enjoy the rehearsal days.”

“We have to reach the venue by 8 am and stay till noon. Due to security reasons, we cannot be late, neither are we allowed to step out of the enclosure, and no one’s allowed inside,” says Bidyutlata Mishra, the dance teacher at the school who accompanies the students to Rajpath and back.

Since January 4, when the rehearsals began, it’s never been before 10.30 am that they get to perform their two-minute-long dance. The rehearsals start with the march-pasts, followed by the state tableaux, and then the bravery awards for children. Once they are escorted out, the dance-drills begin. “I love the parades. They look grand and impressive and watching it live is a different experience altogether,” says Sandhya.

Their ‘Mangalyaan’ drill is the fourth of the ‘dance shows’. “It’s a long wait but totally worth it,” says Priyanka, who is the “best dancer” in her troupe, and is “thrilled to perform in front of the President, Prime Minister and US President Barack Obama”.

The Mangalyaan dance is essentially a choreographed drill. The first three rows have students dressed in the colours of the Indian flag. When the television cameras zoom out for a panoramic shot, Sandhya will be one of the pixels that form the saffron of the tricolour. The colours of the flag will be followed by two rows of blue and one of golden. The last row, all boys, is dressed in grey. A couple of minutes into the dance, the boys scramble to make a human pyramid, symbolising the rocket launch. The boy at the top of the pyramid is ‘Mangalyaan’. “He is in Class VI. He got to be Mangalyaan because he is the lightest,” says Sandhya.

After the dance gets over, they’ll have to run along Rajpath and exit from Mansingh Road, a sprint of about half a kilometre. The senior students hold the rear. It’s now 11.30 am and Sandhya and her friends meet us at the corner of Mansingh Road, from where they are exiting after their show.

The day’s rehearsals are done and Sandhya looks tired but manages a smile. “Initially, I didn’t want to be part of this drill, I was a backstage person. But another girl backed out and I was taken in at the last minute,” she says, adding dancing has never been her first love. “It’s sketching. I sketch when I feel sad. There are times when I really miss my mother, that’s when I sketch,” she says.

Sandhya, who is from Tamil Nadu, also loves cooking. “We look forward to her lunchbox,” says Priyanka. “Sometimes when we feel like tasting her food before lunch break, we speak in Tamil.” Sandhya pipes in: “Priyanka has learnt a few words from me and we use them as code words.”

It’s 2.30 pm and the bus is back at school with Sandhya and the others. She’ll soon have to get home to Dakshinpuri. At 4.45 pm, she’ll have to get ready for her tuition classes. “Accounts is a new subject and that’s why I need help. All other subjects are manageable,” she says. After her classes, she helps her siblings with their homework, does some of her own and cooks dinner. She also tries and cooks some food for the following morning so that “it’s all smooth”.

But for now, everything will have to take a backseat until Republic Day. “I am sure it will be an out-of-the-world experience. All these years, I’ve seen these functions on television and never imagined I would be out there,” she says, with a smile.

Her only regret is that her family will not be able to make it to the venue that day. “The passes they got were of seats that are really far away. So, they’ll watch me on TV.”