CWG and Beijing Olympics - Indian and Chinese

I have been in a minority for being a staunch supporter of the Commonwealth Games (CWG) in my very own Country! One of my good friends actually branded me an endorser of corruption for being a staunch supporter (in a jovial mood in all probability).

 

I am hurt as much as I am surprised with the attitude of my countrymen and friends. Over the course of last 3 months, I have seen the most despicable and unethical media house using the pretext of investigative journalism to demean the games because it lost the bid to become the official newspaper of those very Games. I have seen second grade writers (Chetan Bhagat) advocating boycotting of the Games behind the veil of boycotting corruption when all he was looking for was to cry out loud yet again for being the idiot to have been left out of 'three idiots' windfall. I have seen my friends who have been out of the country telling the world how the CWG mess was making them think on whether to come back to India or not when deep inside their heart, they knew nothing much had changed, definitely not for worse, from the time they left. The most astonishing thing however has been the almost majority opinion of cynicism and indifference towards the games. People have taken western media's comments, pictures, anecdotes and negative bias, multiplied them a 100 times on their Facebook, Orkut, Blogs and Twitter posts to demean and damage their own country on global platforms.

 

This is where I have come to make a major conclusion and draw the sharp contrast between Indians and Chinese. I was in Malaysia on an office tour with a bunch of Chinese Colleagues when the Beijing opening ceremony was a week away. Right from day 1, there was a deep sense of pride in them for being the hosts and a great deal of eagerness to see the ceremony and applaud the work of their fellow countrymen. Western media that used the issue of a 'hair found in some reporter's soup' to tarnish Chinese preparations for the games were, well just a bunch of jokers who had lost touch with the emerging reality of the new world and were still living in the rapidly deteriorating past of western supremacy, to my Chinese colleagues. Compare that to my countrymen who not only magnified western media's apathy but actually thought of using the games as a medium to let out their frustrations with everything that’s not right in India.

 

The event which was expected to be a medium to showcase new and powerful India to the world was actually being used as a medium to express their anger, frustration and usual indifference even at the cost of making their country the laughing stock of the world. Even in the context of any other discussion, when I speak to a Chinese immigrant here in New York, I see the enthusiasm and pride and hear all the good things. Compare that to a fellow Desi who only know of things that need fixing and conveniently forgets all the neat stuff.  

 

This difference of attitude probably just goes on to prove how the Chinese deserve and have earned a right to demand democracy while we, who got democracy as a gift or / and charity are actually increasingly loosing the right to deserve it. People who were criticizing the games, the Government, Kalmadi and almost everyone they could lay their finger on are actually the same set of people who hardly vote in the elections, rarely obey the traffic rules, pay bribes to jump the queue or save on a parking or drunken driving ticket, litter on the roads and public places, occasionally spit and urinate in the open and quite often come out of their flashy cars in bright sunshine and throw the religious waste into the rivers – not to mention the grand Ganesh Visarjan and Durga Pooja festivals where all the hygiene and civility that they were so much expecting to have been fixed up for CWG is conveniently forgotten by them.

 

Idea of this post is not to attack anyone – all I am trying to ask is for my countrymen to be mature in deciding when to air our anger and frustration and when to rally behind the nation. Lets learn to appreciate and be worthy of deserving a democracy. Lets just be proud of all the greatness that our country has and be a pillar of support in making it greater rather than criticizing it to the gutter. 

 

Best

Varun