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!

Day 216 - The Scandalous Games

Hosting an event of the scale of the Commonwealth Games is definitely a national honour, and responsibility, although the Commonwealth itself as an organisation, may be completely defunct.  Over the past few months, however, the media has been going on and on about about how badly prepared are we to host the Games.

There have been many allegations. 

Allegation No.1: The infrastructure is not ready.  The construction at the various venues for the Games is not complete.  Building materials are still lying around at the venues; probably the Indian athletes are fortunate, especially the long jumpers, steeple chasers and marathon runners, as they might have used these as an effective hurdle training course, in their attempts to get to these venues to practice!

Allegation No.2: Everything which has been built has been hurriedly built and is of inferior quality.  Roofs are leaking and the walls already have cracks.  Imagine a weightlifter in serious contention of a medal, attempting a 250 KG 'clean and jerk', and right then droplets of leaking water from the roof hitting his pate.  I think we need raincoats for the weightlifters!

Allegation No.3: Huge financial irregularities.  Treadmills have been hired for Rs.9, 50, 000 each for a period of 45 days!  Some smart bloke in the papers has gone and found out the cost of buying the costliest  treadmill from Harrods, which happens to be around Rs.7, 00, 000.  A contract for media displays during the Queen's Baton Run across India has been awarded to a one man company, whose company is in liquidation in UK.  It is a pity; even the common man's hard earned money could not save his company.  But the interesting part is that there is no document to prove that there was a contract, even though money changed hands, just before the company went into liquidation, incidentally.

All this when we have 2 months to go for the event to happen.  A showcase event meant to demonstrate to the world India's capabilities in hosting high profile events, thus strengthening our future bids for hosting the Asian Games and the Olympics.  And then there is politics involved; no surprises, wherever money is involved, politics has to be present.  The opposition wants the entire Organising Committee to be sacked, including its Chairman, who is the sports administrator extraordinaire in India!  I think they should themselves resign, the money they have already made should definitely last for a couple of lifetimes. 

Amidst all of this, nobody is worried about the pride of the country which is at stake.  The Games are already a marketing disaster, with the common man / middle class showing complete apathy and no interest in the conduct of these games.  We will also miss stars such as Usain Bolt, who has given New Delhi the miss to prepare for more important events.

My view is that the entire might of the nation should right now be focused on ensuring that the conduct of the Games happens reasonably well, the chances of it being a resounding success are already nil.  After the Games are over, there needs to be a serious debate on the role of politicians in sports administration.  Sports administration is the honey which attracts every politician, big or small, stature doesn't matter.  If the Games end up being a damp squib, Mr.Kalmadi needs to be held accountable for it and forever banned from being a sports administrator.

In the meantime, let us pray for the smooth conduct of the Commonwealth Games in Delhi.

Take care.