It's Republic Day

Today was the Indian 4th of July, well sort of, it's Republic Day  Not a ton of flag waving but a proud holiday none the less.  The bad thing is that everything is closed today.  I didn’t even know about Republic Day until late yesterday afternoon.  At least I got to stock up on some Old Monk before the world shut down.   The biggest thing going on was some regional dancing done by local villages and from Darjeeling itself.  My favorite was the youngest member of a local dance troupe.  She was gorgeous and was very into this extremely long dance.  Not bad for a 3 or 4 year old.  And of course put her own spin on it.  You couldn’t have be in this part of the world without the king and his dancers. The young girls were beautiful and it was funny to see them in traditional dance and then talking on their cell phones afterward.  What kids do for their parents....  And no Rebublic Day celebration would be complete without some military type bands to get the patriotism flowing.  The gentleman who was leading the police bag pipe band commanded a respect that caused everyone to take notice.  The festivities were capped off with some hot tea from the local plantations.  All in all a very nice morning.  Then....the world closed back up.