It all started on the 29th of November, 2009. The early morning Sun greeted us all in The Doveton Corric Hr Secondary School. We were a parade of nearly 175 students (Boys & Girls). It was the day of the first level of selection for participating in the Republic Day Parade. We had three levels in the selection in which I was the only one from our school to get selected. Last minute corrections and changes were made to the list which now had exactly 80 boys & 80 girls.
The next round of selections took place in the Rajarathinam Stadium on the 4th of January, giving us one month of preparation time. This time the level of scrutiny for errors was much greater than we ever expected and the selection was based on every move of ours, including 'Stand at Ease', 'Attention' and even our neck position while marching. I finally made it into the selected lot.
The next one month passed with the same routine with practice daily morning at 6 am every day, with just three days of holidays in the entire month! We practiced at the Rajarathinam Stadium till the 16th of January. We usually had around four and half kilometers of marching every day. Our training location later shifted to the old 'Traffic Wardens' Office' in Vepery, where we had solid 3 hrs of training every day.
We had three days of practice at the marina beach on 18th, 21st & the dress rehearsal on 23rd of January. We had to march our way from the light house to the Madras University twice on the 18th, because the Air Force officers, who were the selecting authorities, were not satisfied with our performance. It meant nearly fifteen kilometers of marching in just four hours! The last few days of practice passed without much strain, as they did not want to stress us too much just before the final event.
One month of strenuous training and perseverance paid off as our parade was a major success. The broad smile on the Governor's face as we marched by him proved our hard work fruitful. Later, we were given certificates and mementos by the Deputy Chief Traffic Warden, Chennai City.
R. Vaikunth
11 E3
P.S.B.B KKN
Back