Too Close to Home

Picture this. You are attending your child’s school play. It is titled, “A Day to Remember” and the opening scene depicts New York City on an average day. The students are playing the parts of typical New Yorkers, briskly walking as if rushing to work with a handcrafted city skyline as the backdrop. The big clock in the background shows 8:45 a.m, and the song “Workin 9 to 5” is playing as the characters begin entering their places of employment. All of a sudden, frantic, ear piercing notes replace the music coming through the speakers, and the students begin running around in a state of panic. At first you can’t tell what’s causing the chaos, but then you see it. A student is carrying a pole with a cardboard plane across the stage, and before you can even comprehend what’s going on, he slams it directly into one of the tallest two buildings. Smoke begins pouring out from the background, and that’s when the color drains from your face; you suddenly realize exactly what your child’s class is re-enacting… the terrorist attacks of 9/11.

Now, I can imagine you reading this and thinking that I have crossed a line. How dare I stir up such close-to-home emotions?!?!? This is supposed to be a happy blog about our GSE adventures, why would any American bring up such sad memories on purpose? But please understand that there’s a purpose for me creating this tragic scene in your imagination; I wanted you to feel, not just read, about the Republic Day presentation our team witnessed on January 26th.

January 26th is Republic Day in India. On this day in 1950 India solidified their democratic identity with the creation of their constitution. Along with August 15th, their Independence Day, Republic Day is a very important holiday in this country. We were in Nagda at the time and were invited to a celebration at the town’s local school. The way it was described to us in our itinerary was as a parade, so we immediately thought of our typical parades at home with floats, balloons and marching bands, and initially pictured something along the lines of our team on a GSE Rotary float practicing our Miss America waves. But instead we wound up being honored with front row seats to what turned out to be an amazing mix of dance performances, singing, acrobatics, and skits. There are towns and cities in India which celebrate Republic Day with a typical processional-type parade, but Nagda had put together an entire 2 hour student-run show, and it was incredible.














After a few of the acts we came to an event in the program entitled “Action Dance”. Based on the name I was expecting a very high energy dance performance of some sort. But it turned out to be something very different. The students began setting up the backdrop which included a cardboard cut-out of a building, and off to the side they erected what looked like a cage of some sort. Behind this I could see a few of the children in their costumes… and I started to really question what was about to be performed...


“Are those toy guns in their hands?”
“That building looks a lot like a hotel or something…”
“Oh my gosh, are they really going to act out what I think they are going to act out?”

Sure enough I was right. The Action Dance turned out to be 100 Nagda school children re-enacting the Mumbai terrorist attacks of November 26th.






I almost choked up, I wasn't sure what to do or say or think. I looked over at Robin and found out later we were both thinking the same thing, "Had this been performed in a school at home, it would have stirred up major controversy." Toy Guns? Kids acting as terrorists? Students acting out murders? And this event only happened 3 months ago. Wasn't it too soon to be reliving this tragic event? A little too close to home? This would never ever be ok back in America. But as these questions and thoughts were racing through my head, the performance took a different turn, and as a result so did my thinking.
After the terrorist scene, the music changed. The attackers were conquered by the Indian armed forces, and as they were taken away and arrested, (the cage in the background turned out to be a jail) students dressed in beautiful costumes appeared and started dancing and singing. They were waving the Indian flag and singing Jai' Hind! Jai Hind is Hindi for "Victory to India", and at that moment I realized the importance of this Republic Day celebration.


The terrorist attack of November 26th was a terrible tragedy, but what came of it? India faced a problem and came out victorious in the end. Instead of trying to push the sad part of the story aside as quickly as possible, India looked at the nightmare that occurred and found the good somewhere inside. And the theatrical performance we witnessed seemed like the nation's way of saying, "We felt, we hurt, but now we are moving on!" This nation's ability to embrace the truthful notion that bad things have to happen for good things to happen seems to help them heal and learn very quickly from their wounds.

Maybe America as a nation can learn from this very strong characteristic of India. Maybe you, as an individual, can learn from the GSE story I have just shared and do the same. Life is filled with all sorts of events, and not all can be good. But life truly is a gift, and we should embrace every moment. In order to learn and grow and really appreciate happiness and, in a sense, victory, we must first face the event or events that have caused the sadness... not try to ignore them. Because as our team learned from just a single performance on India's Republic Day, we had to first watch something unpleasant before we could see and appreciate the happy ending.