The "Shame Games" - India's date with a Mirror

Well every one's talking about it, India's endeavour of hosting its biggest sporting event (other than cricket) till date- The Common Wealth Games-2010, New Delhi.



We are witnessing another kind of a mega event unfolding on its parallel lines. A satire, nothing short of black drama really. I call it India's date with a Mirror, its chance to find out how deep and huge is the valley of sling and filth spread around a common man's aspirations of a better life and a nation's dreams of becoming a global power in the next 25 years. The drama, the valley of corruption, incompetency, bureacracy, red-tapism, lethargy..... I could just go on and on you know.



Dreams come true I believe, at least thats what my blog name suggests, but this achievement will take some doing. We are facing the biggest embarrassment on international front of a proffessional kind, where we will not be able to fulfill a commitment, provide worldclass infrastructure and services for the first such job that we took responsibility of.



Be ware, this is not a political, regional, linguistic or such sort of a problem but an international embarrassment for the second fastest growing economy of the world. Economy, this word has a new meaning now for us. Its existence comes to fore only in such sporting events-- remember IPL-3. Yesss, it was recession when multi-million dollar scams were staged in IPL. CWG has just made it look so small. Its a mockery of all those men, women and children who die of hunger in this country coz the agriculture minister doesn't understand Supreme Court's order but that's a matter for some other time. All those GDP and export and sensex and nifty figures are in the news to fool us, to make us believe that we as a country are progressing. But we need to ask ourselves a question, Are we really? With crores of people without the basic roti, kapda and makaan in this country what good is this great economy and its fanfare?



The govt has spent more than 50000 crores in building (that's what they say) the infrastructure of CWG in a country where the comman man still doesn't have proper roads, bridges, access to required water and electric supply. A country where a man with a Mercedez Benz too spends hours in traffic before reaching his final destination, forget an ordinary bus commuter. A country where the education minister is fighting for more budget to implement schemes of providing better education to crores of illeterate men, women and children with the finance minister. A country surrounded by floods, terrorism, hunger, drought, civil clashes etc all at the same time. So how will the govt jutstify this cost on the exchequer's pocket amidst such mayhem? And I wouldn't have had a problem if only I could have seen a beautiful organisation of these games which could showcase India's ability to host an event of this nature as done by South Africa (Fifa world cup-2010) and China (Beijing Olympics-2008).

You know what we should once and for all stop comparisons between India and China. China is decades ahead of us in development and a hundred years ahead in attitude. Barack Obama just recently stated that even with the recession and unemployment in the USA, it was still the place to be. It was still the country of opportunities, and still had the best of infrastructure and services to provide to its citizens. Imagine Dr. Manmohan Singh saying this on national television. I am sure atleast a million people will die laughing their guts out or of a heart attack. But then may be not coz we Indians have become immune. Immune to our problems, immune to our surroundings and immune to our sensitivity. "Yeh India hai, Yahaan sab aisa hi chalta hai, Yahaan kuch badal nahi sakta, Hum kya kar sakte hain?"