The day Lebanese danced to dhol
It was Baisakhi day in 2007. This was the most important day for our battalion, 15 Punjab, which was raised in 1705 on this occasion at Patiala by Baba Ala Singh (of whom Capt Amarinder Singh, former Punjab CM, is a descendant). However, we were in a dilemma as we were deployed operationally on foreign shores in Lebanon, devoid of administrative support, normally available back home.
Notwithstanding that, the day had to be celebrated, primarily in honour of the martyrs who had made the supreme sacrifice to raise the stature of the battalion to its current form. Ours is the oldest and the most decorated battalion of the Army which won a record 18 Vir Chakras in a single operation in the historic Battle of Zoji La in 1948.
As the Commanding Officer, I decided that we will not only celebrate the occasion but also use it to spread our culture far and wide. The next biggest challenge was to attract the Lebanese crowd. For that, a spectacular event had to be organised wherein the who’s who of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon and the civilian Lebanese populace would be present.
I decided to organise a Medal Day Parade on Baisakhi. The Lebanese did not know about Baisakhi, but yes, they were aware of the charms of the Medal Day Parade. It was a big-ticket event, where even the employed Lebanese used to take special leave, merely to attend it. All soldiers deployed as part of the UN Peacekeeping Force, who finish 180 days of physical foreign service, are pinned with medals on their chests by the Force Commander.
Maj Gen Claudio Graziano, along with a large entourage of his staff officers, was to do the honours. He later rose to the coveted position of the Chief of Defence Staff in the Italian army.
The news spread like wildfire in the local town of Eb-el-Saqi and around. Civilians turned out in large numbers and the seating capacity had to be expanded. After the parade, we had planned a grand finale — bhangra and gatka performance. When our Sikh Punjabi troops broke into energetic bhangra dance moves, it put the Lebanese in a unique state of happiness. All of them got their rush of euphoria with this celebratory harvest dance and all hell broke loose. Several Lebanese youth broke into dance in their seats. Many of them exhorted the Force Commander to join our soldiers on the beat of a solid dhol.
Bhangra was followed by gatka, the martial art form of dance in Punjab. That impressed the Lebanese girls who clicked pictures with our soldier performers. At the end of the day, it gave us deep satisfaction that the Lebanese now knew about bhangra, gatka and Punjab.
