Mr. Ranajit Roy has stood at India Gate more times than he can count. In 28 years as a GATGA-certified tourist guide — one of the longest-serving members of our association — he has watched the sun rise over the Kartavya Path at dawn, stood in the crowd during Republic Day rehearsals, and watched thousands of visitors fall silent before the eternal flame of Amar Jawan Jyoti.

The First Time I Understood What India Gate Really Was

"I had been guiding at India Gate for about three years when a delegation of British veterans came to visit — men in their eighties, some in wheelchairs. They had come to pay their respects to their Indian comrades who had fallen in the First World War. When I read them the inscription on the arch — the names of 13,516 Indian soldiers who died fighting for the British Crown — one of the veterans broke down completely. He said: 'We never said thank you.' That moment changed how I explain India Gate to every visitor who comes to me."

Republic Day: The Rehearsals Nobody Sees

"The real magic happens in the pre-dawn rehearsals in early January. At 5 AM, when Delhi is still cold and quiet, you see the military contingents practising — the camels of the Border Security Force, the elephants, the tanks rolling silently down the empty boulevard. I have brought a few very early-rising visitors to witness this. None of them have ever forgotten it."

"A guide's job is not to recite facts. It is to be present at the right moment — to hand someone the emotional key to a place, and let them open the door themselves." — Mr. Ranajit Roy, GATGA Senior Guide, 28 years

What Mr. Roy Recommends for Every India Gate Visit

• Come at dawn or dusk — the monument is extraordinary in low light.
• Walk the full Kartavya Path from Rashtrapati Bhavan to India Gate — the scale of the avenue tells you everything about the ambitions of those who designed it.
• Read the names — take five minutes to read some of the 13,516 names inscribed on the arch. They are individual human beings, not statistics.
• Visit the National War Memorial adjacent to India Gate — completed in 2019, it honours India's post-independence military fallen.

Twenty-eight years. Thousands of visitors. And Mr. Ranajit Roy still gets up every day and walks to India Gate — because, as he says simply: "Every day, someone sees it for the first time. And I get to be there for that."