Day 272 - CWG, CSK & The Power of Ideas

'Due to all the criticism and bad press around the preparations for the Commonwealth Games (CWG), Suresh Kalmadi decided to commit suicide by hanging himself from the roof. And the roof collapsed. Next, he attempted to jump off a bridge with the same motive, however, this time the bridge collapsed!’

This is a joke which has been doing the rounds for some days now, ridiculing all the goof ups that have now become part and parcel of the preparations for the CWG. It is also a good example of how we, as a country, have a great self-deprecating sense of humour. There is now even a page dedicated to ‘CWG Jokes’ on Facebook! However, at the bottom of our hearts, we all know the fact that all this bad press is causing tremendous pain to all of us as Indians. We are probably trying to cope with it by trying to find the funny side of all this mess.

The past week has been particularly bad for the organisers of the CWG. A roof (false ceiling, actually) collapsed; nobody was killed. A bridge collapsed; 27 people injured, but nobody was killed! However, it was only meant for ordinary pedestrians. Elsewhere, in the Games village, trouble began to brew as athletes began trickling in. The apartments were not properly maintained. Toilets were not clean. Mattresses had human footprints and marks of dog paws on them! And then Lalit Bhanot lectured us on the differences in the standards of hygiene of foreigners and us lesser mortals. Indian boxer, Akhil Kumar’s bed broke when he sat on it! Would ‘The Commonwealth Circus’ be an appropriate name for the event? I think so. Because the sportsperson is anyway not in the limelight for these games. In fact, many of them have just pulled out. I do hope we hold the responsible people accountable and punish them. We should in fact punish them by boycotting the CWG completely. For a country like India, where a large portion of our population lives below the poverty line, organising a Rs.70,000 crore extravaganza is a criminal offence.

The other interesting happening over last week was the elevator pitches for ‘The Power of Ideas 2010’ initiative. Manish’s business idea has been short-listed as part of this initiative and he had to make a 5 minute elevator pitch to an evaluating panel in Mumbai. After umpteen number of rehearsals and fine tuning, I accompanied him to the venue on Saturday for the Elevator Pitch. I was also hoping to listen in on the business ideas of other participants. Unfortunately, the format of the pitches was such that only the participant as well as the evaluation panel were involved. Hence no audiences! Manish made his 5 minute speech and was bombarded with questions, which was a good indication of the open interest in his business idea / model. I hope he does make the next cut, because he deserves it.

I also got my new house registered finally during the course of the week. Hopefully will be able to take possession of the place after a few more formalities are completed. Will need to then plan the whole run up to the actual occupation of the house, including a fresh coat of paint and a whole lot of modifications which the better half has ordered...phew!  But, am I looking forward to it? YES!

The other thing that I am looking forward to this week is my birthday!  Though, aging by one more year is no fun, the day itself is so much fun!  Will write all about that day and much more in my next post.

Till then...take care!

P.S.: By the way, I would like to congratulate all my friends in Chennai on Chennai Super Kings winning the Champions League T20 tournament!  Hey....whistle poooodu!