Much more than just 15 Minutes of Fame

We as a nation are making a royal fool of ourselves before almost the entire world in the run up to the (in)famous Delhi Commonwealth Games.

D'uh.

CWG was like an adorable little baby gifted to us. We wanted to pamper it, feed it, nurture it well so that it would soon grow big and strong and fetch us truckloads of money and much-needed praise and recognition from the world. The West has always been recognized; our competitor China shot into the limelight with the Olympics; heck, even AFRICA struck it big with FIFA 2010. CWG was supposed to be OUR claim to fame and glory. And oh, how it pains me the way it's turning out to be more of a claim to shame and agony.

First, the Queen decided she wouldn't be able to make it. All right, that's OK; it's beyond our control. But then, one thing led to another and rather gory-looking skeletons began tumbling out of our shoddy closet all at once.

According to news reports I've read and heard about the capital, roads are dug up and unpaved; as they always are. The rains are wrecking havoc, as they always do. And we are busy advising prospective visitors to not hug, kiss or wear 'immodest' clothes, and to carry their own toilet paper because our public loos are 'few and filthy'.

Honestly, at this rate, we might as well get Rakhi Sawant to perform at the opening ceremony and have the world marvel over our contradictory nature that allows women to leave nothing of their anatomy to the imagination while on stage or before a camera yet frowns at girls who wear shorts while walking on the street. At least that way people may BEGIN to somewhat comprehend our mentality and learn that all the embezzlement that's gone into organizing the games is just a way of life here, just another sad representation of our sad hypocritical values.

I respect this country, it's MY country, and I direly want it to do well and achieve greater heights in the global arena, but when I read all the disturbing, embarrassing stories and reports about the CWG, I can't help but quite cynically think to myself: 'oh well, this was BOUND to happen.'

Maybe, in a way it’s a good thing that the ugly reality of our political and administrative establishment is being unveiled to the world even if it’s leaving us severely red-faced. Maybe things will finally start to change only after we make a major mockery of ourselves at an international level.

Either way, I sincerely hope that we clean up our act quick – quicker than we use the lotas in our loos, and most certainly quicker than our police arrives at crime scenes or our judicial system doles out justice or our civic authorities act upon complaints by the aam aadmi, the mango man, the common man.