Happy New Year 2026!
On 31 December every year, when the clock strikes midnight, a million faces will turn toward the glittering lights of Times Square in New York. The crystal ball will descend, fireworks will erupt, champagne will pop—and floating above all that noise will be a familiar tune: a 1947 Guy Lombardo recording of “Auld Lang Syne.” New Year in Times Square has to be experienced!
Across the world, it’s a song of celebration. A toast to memories. A promise to the future. A Scots poem by Robert Burns about cherished “old times.”
But here’s the twist.
For those of us who have worn the uniform of the Indian Armed Forces, this music doesn’t just belong to New Year’s Eve.
It belongs to the single most sacred walk of our lives.
Many officers may not even realise this: the solemn melody that played when we marched into our commission… is the same one the world raises its glasses to at midnight.
A Century of Goodbyes
This connection isn’t accidental.
When the Indian Military Academy was established in 1932, this tradition found its place in our military culture. However, it became permanently etched into India’s history on March 4, 1948.
On that day, at the Gateway of India, the last British battalion—the Somerset Light Infantry—marched to board the ships that would take them home. As they departed, the band played Auld Lang Syne.
It was the sound of an empire saying goodbye…
And the echo of a sovereign Indian military stepping forward.
Since then, the tune has become the emotional heartbeat of the Passing Out Parade across all academies—IMA, OTA, AFA, and INA.
A song the world uses to welcome a year became, for us, the anthem of transformation.
Our “Midnight” in Chennai
Our New Year didn’t come wrapped in winter skies and party confetti.
It came on a blazing morning in Chennai four decades ago, standing on the Drill Square at OTA. ( Now named after Major Parameswaran, Param Veer Chakra ( Posthumous) )
Rifle in hand.
Silence everywhere.
A lifetime of dreams condensed into a single moment.
Then the band began.
Those haunting opening notes drifted across the parade ground, and suddenly, time slowed. As we marched toward the Antim Pag — The Final Step, it wasn’t a celebration I felt.
A few original photos from our Passing Out Parade, August 1985.
It was a Farewell and a New Start.
Farewell to early morning runs.
Farewell to blistered feet and punishing drills.
Farewell to the laughter, the pain, the tears, and the unbreakable brotherhood of cadet life.
Farewell to Officers Training School, which imbued in us the confidence to take on the world!
Start to a Life in Uniform.
Like Tennyson wrote:
“Ring out the old, ring in the new.”
Crunch. Pause. Crunch.
Each step carried a piece of our old life away.
We reached the granite slab.
The pipes rose to that piercing high note.
We lifted our feet
Step. The Last STEP!
In that instant, our personal New Year began.
A cadet ceased to exist.
An Officer of the Indian Army took his place.
Auld Lang Syne – A Song Shared by the World — Felt Differently by Soldiers
So when you hear that song welcoming 2026, look at the soldier standing next to you.
For you, it marks twelve new months.
For us, it will forever be the music of the moment we offered our lives to the nation.
Happy New Year to my brothers and sisters in arms—and to everyone reading this.
May every Final Step you take this year lead to something extraordinary.
Jai Hind.
#FaujiTales #SentinelsOfHistory #IndianArmy #OTAChennai #AntimPag #AuldLangSyne #MilitaryTradition #NewYear2026 #IMADehradun #AFADundigal #INAEzhamala
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