Lessons from CWG, 2010

A cup is either half full or half empty, when it contains liquid only till half way up from its bottom. The optimist, they say, is happy to see the part which is half full and hopes for a desired result soon while the pessimist exults beholding the part which is empty and concludes the result will never come. There is something wrong here. Neither view will give a desired result. Going in for action to either get the cup full or empty as quickly as possible, depending on requirements, we will have a desired result  - either a full or an empty cup.

Recently CWG New Delhi, 2010 was compared to an Indian wedding. This may have meant many things. If it was meant that all frailties leading to the event will adjust by themselves, during the event, there is a point – because more the chaos at a wedding more the fun for the participants – nothing else matters as long as the wine and food are good. A couple of hugs and back slapping generally wash away all blues. At CWG if everyone gets medals and the media are well looked after …..

The difference in the CWG - despite its relevance in the current world order being debatable - and the Indian wedding is that the CWG has brought to focus the shortcomings of a Nation on the threshold of becoming a global power. For the Nation’s aspirations to fructify, we have to do a critical self analysis and get the ‘cup’ full or empty as quickly as possible. We can not leave to chance the success of a programme, venture or event.

Whatever the verdict on CWG, it is obvious that the planning, preparation and execution to the build up were handled by authorities with an unprofessional and amateurish approach. There was no blue print and foresight was lacking. Rampant corruption among the organizers compounded matters. India has a big lesson to learn from this - an opportunity we cannot afford to lose.

Post games, these aspects will be drowned in a cacophony of incoherent voices throwing blames at will. Some heads may look to roll. The Nation will get caught up in another game like the one being played in Karnataka. There will arise a voice crying ‘all is well that ends well’. CWG, New Delhi will be forgotten.

If we do not wake up we can never improve the system. This is a fit case to analyse the conduct from posing candidature to post conclusion activities in regard to the games, including continued use / reuse of assets.

The idea is not to equate the games with an Indian wedding.

The Singharh hike

A couple of years back one evening, my daughter all of 21, on the eve of her first weekend at work with a MNC announced to no one in particular “I am going on hike this weekend”. I looked up from my lap top computer with a wry smile. She was all excited at the prospect of an all night climb and the out doors. She has gone on many weekend hikes since.

Years ago, in my teens, I was privy to similar chants at the National Defence Academy. (NDA).  How many times have I heard “I am on singharh hike this Sunday”. But there was not the same enthusiasm in that refrain. And herein lies the difference. You enjoy doing something when it is not forced on you.  The ‘hike’ was a trip on foot from NDA, Khadkwasla to the top of the Singharh fort and back, in field service marching order (to the ounce in weight) starting at 7’Oclock .A.M – with packed breakfast – and finishing by noon or thereabouts. At NDA the ‘Sunday singharh hike’ was awarded for an act of omission or commission! (It depends on who you are -the perspective changes between the giver and the receiver).

But the singharh hike in NDA meant different things to different people.

A hike to anywhere is an enjoyable event if that is your only out door activity in the week. But for us cadets at the NDA any day of the week was filled with physical/outdoor activities.  So on the face of it another day hiking under the sun was no special attraction. For most of us it meant a lost Sunday – half was same as full Sunday, any way; by the time you returned from Shivaji’s citadel around noon, cleaned up and finished lunch, your day was up. A trip to Pune on liberty was a non starter for a ‘hiker’. A movie in the evening meant hiking back to mess on limbs/body parts other than the human way.

If the week was easier than normal a few of us did enjoy the hike. Taking a leaf out of David Livingstone’s life, the veterans were always on the look out for newer and shorter routes to the top of the fort. Some even considered hiring a monitor lizard to climb up the sheer cliff, a la Tanaji Malusare, the General who re-captured the fort for Shivaji in 1670. I am not aware if some one really managed to do that.

At times a group veered off the route and made for the shores of the Khadkwasla lake. By mid day they were on the finish line with the mandatory ‘singharh slip’ from the fort, looking tired and dirty. How that was managed, to date, remains a secret – and rightly so.

There is nothing more refreshing than a drink of chilled Coca Cola along the way on the return trip. Invariably on these Sundays at the mouth of the Khadkwasla dam, coming in from the IAT side, was a make shift ‘shop’ selling just that – chilled Coca Cola from ice boxes! Years later when I was posted at NDA, I met this enterprising employee of NDA, who saw an opportunity and moonlighted on those Sundays! He had since graduated to trading in used cars, one of which he managed to sell to me.

As I drove up in that car along the tarred road to the gates of the Singharh fort with my family, the excitement was missing. That is how time can change perceptions.

Now, I often wonder at my daughter’s passion for hikes – never knew it could be hereditary.