What a farce! Seriously, what a farce!
Right from the concept to the execution CWG 2010 is a complete farce. What exactly are the Commonwealth Games? A grim reminder of the slavery ridden past of competing nations? Or a pointer towards British exploitation which ensured that most of these countries are still Developing or Under Developed?
I do believe that these Games are more grounded in reality or perhaps mediocrity. Leaving apart a handful, where else would these countries actually stand a chance of competing forget winning medals? India tried pulling a similar trick a few years ago. That was when Mr. IT Savvy Naidu blew up a billion rupees to host the first and last Afro-Asian Games.
Before I rant on, let it be noted that I mean no disrespect to any of the competing athletes. We have indeed seen some brilliant performances in these past few days. Subhajit Saha and Achanta Sharath Kamal played some scintillating table tennis yesterday. And the Indian hockey team for once showed nerves of steel to mount an incredible comeback. Hopefully they will not go down without a worthy fight today as well.
But for more than a month now India has been caught up with these fanciful CWG Games. Most corporate professionals in and around NCR eagerly awaited not the Games as much as the hopeful announcement of holidays. Half the volunteers disappeared with the free kits never to be seen again. The urbane and educated crowd on Facebook and Twitter went back to nursery with a new rhyme "Shame Shame CWG Game".
The media as usual did its bit. They never seem to disappoint us. I mean how often does an India-Australia series or KBC launch hardly get coverage? Oh how I wish Peepli Live had been made to 'conscientize' Indian media rather than stand in the Oscar queue. But is it really the media's fault? Ok, they do go over the top a hell lot. But after all "Jo Bikta Hai Wahi Dikhta Hai". We watch, they show. They show, we watch. Its a chicken and egg situation.
Yes they are spineless. But aren't all of us? Hasn't Delhi 2010 shows just that. Before all the medals started pouring in, Kalmadi and the rest of the jing-bang were under some serious fire from all corners. I don't doubt that these Games were riddled with corruption and am sure we will hear a lot more on this once all the fantastic performances of our athletes are long forgotten. Yet we as a country never got behind the Games. Where was all our nationalistic fervour then? We were all part of the mob pointing fingers. But who at?
Those of us in NCR could have done our bit to make Delhi 2010 a showcase event for the World. But like always we didn't. The flip-flop happened when Narang and Bindra shot home the first gold. Since then we have all become 'Indians'. We don't hesitate in 'owning' a Deepika Kumari. In fact we revel in the story of her father being an auto driver's daughter and accomplishing so much. But what is to ensure that she herself doesn't have to labour a few years from now? Perhaps the 20 lakhs that the Indian government will dole out in all its magnanimity.
As India fights for the coveted second spot in the medals tally we need to seriously ponder. While we make giant strides on the economic side, there are a lot of others areas that demand our attention. And perhaps the most important of them all is our attitude towards our own country. More often than not it is we who let ourselves and our country down. And I needn't go into a lecture about how.
Its human tendency to want to be on the winning side. In today's headlines, Sheila Dixit and Tejinder Khanna fight over the success of Delhi 2010. Even I switched channels when India was 3-1 down against England in the hockey semi-finals. But what will it take for us to stand by our country no matter what? For one, our ownership of everything Indian has to be real. Criticism is necessary but a Mani Shankar Aiyar walking out of Delhi in protest does us no good. To the outside world we need to be one India. For reminders sake we are part of the Commonwealth because we could be divided and ruled.
As an aside. What is it that I am doing? Free riding on all the CWG brouhaha to get some eyeballs for my writing. And strategically too, on this one last day before its back to Rakhi Sawant, Big Boss and other such important matters.
