Lowering the Flags!

If Amritsar was peaceful, quiet and reflective, our day out finished with a bang, at the Beating Retreat ceremony on the Indian-Pakistan border at Wagah.

The ceremony starts promptly at 5pm; cars are not allowed closer than about 2km from the parade ground.  This is not so much for national security but rather because there are thousands of people on the Indian side (and similar numbers I suspect on the Pakistani), and there's just no room!

We were a little late leaving Amritsar so our group had only about 15 minutes to get from the carpark to the arena.  Our Indian colleagues, most of whom had been previously, knew that they would not be eligible for the VIP seats and were too late for a good position in the general admission section, so they hung back, encouraging us to run to the border.  Some of my colleagues have too much dignity to run, but I am happy to embarrass myself for any number of interesting reasons, so I sprinted off.

After the first kilometer or so I had to pass through three or four checkpoints - I think I was meant to be patted down and have my bag and passport inspected at each.  However the security staff very kindly got into the spirit of things when they saw me dash up and we repeated this conversation:

Alixon jogging into a checkpoint, starting to pull passport from bag, "Namaste, Sir (or Madam)"

Kindly border guard, "Namaste, Madam.  What is your country?"

Alixon (getting more and more winded with each checkpoint), "...Aust...tra...lia!"

KBG, "No problem, Madam.  No passport, no checking.  You are too late for checking!"

Alixon, "Sir, you...mean...I'm...too...late???"

KBG, "For checking, yes Madam.  Go through.  Run faster!  Faster!!!"

Alixon, "Thank you, Sir!  Thank you!"

KBG, "RUN!!!"

The back of the arena was a bit of a rabbit warren, and it wasn't clear to me where I should go: I suspect the soldiers directing people had been moved round into the arena to keep order there.  I was keen, having got this far, to go further, so I ran up a large-ish alleyway, and exploded into the middle of the parade ground on the Indian side of the arena.  This turned out to be an accidental master stroke, as I was bundled hurriedly into a seat in the front row of the VIP section.  This section was mainly full of Indians who had booked advance tickets, along with a few foreigners.

Under A Stern Eye in the VIP section

The flag-lowering ceremony is big on ceremony; there was a good 20-30 minutes of soldiers in very fancy hats parading up and down between the gate and the stands, very energetically performing synchronised high kicks (which are very difficult to photograph, incidentally).

The atmosphere was electric: the crowd was screaming and cheering wildly.  I have no idea what was chanted, but it was exhilarating, and very easy to get swept up in the Team India sentiment.  Most of the soldiers were handsome young men and the crowd was full of hundreds of enthusiastic young women: each side appreciated the other's ardour.

Looking back through the stands in the Indian arena

There were thousands of cheering people!!

Through the gate it appeared a similar level of fervor was building on the Pakistani side.

Looking through the gate into Pakistan: Pakistani flag is on the right; the Indian flag is to the left of the gate, out of shot

Eventually, after much high kicking, marching and cheering, the soldiers marched down to the gate, opened it, and took a long time fastidiously sorting out the halyards.

Acknowledging the Pakistani soldiers and organising halyards

At last both the Indian and Pakistani flags began to be lowered: very slooowly, and keeping pace exactly with each other all the way down.

Once Our Flag was down it was folded up and ceremoniously marched away.  Then the gate was shut for the night and we in the VIP section were released by the soldiers keeping the crowd mostly in their seats and let loose on the soldiers who had participated in the ceremony and who were immediately mobbed by their screaming fans for photos.

Maybe that's why the soldiers have the snazzy hats: so they can be seen and rescued in a crowd of adoring fans?

We had about 10 minutes before the rope barrier was dropped and the non-VIP section (from where most of the the screaming young girls came) rushed through to meet their heroes.

As I walked back to our minibus, I caught up with colleagues who had also seen the spectacle.  We were all exhilarated by the pageantry and spectacle, and caught up in the fervour of the crowd!