Games that nations play

Hostage...

For the last nine days, a police van is posted round the clock just outside our houses in the college campus. This is to make sure that we don't venture out in the newly constructed stadium. The only way to come inside the college campus and to go out has become a stagnant pool of mud and water ever since the rains started two months back. I could still make it to the main road in the beginning. But no longer. Only those having a car can venture out. I am confined to my house for last four days with more rains and mosquitoes. There is no milk or bread as the vendor could not bring his cart.

When the construction started, our taps went dry. The newly planted 'angrezi' grass was always green though. But the rains I loved. This year it is abundant anyways.

The whole area needs to be 'sanitized'. We are asked to park our scooters and cars inside our houses. When the games start, I think we would not even be peeping out of our windows. The players' ground is very much in the range of our gaze. We can not complain. Four of us can not talk together outside our homes as the prohibitory orders are in place.

The students have long been evicted from their hostels. They have ended up as a mouth watering platter to the neighbouring landlords. They have also become experts on economics of rack-renting. Some of them will come back to the hostel once it is transformed as a world class facility. But only the students of 'class' will afford this world class facility. Rest of them will remain hostage to the economics of rack-renting.

Long before it came to us in the university, four hundred thousand of others had already vanished from their shanties along the river, and from the streets where they dwelt. An entire games village and dozens of flyovers have grown out of their bellies. Maternity death rate is very high among poor people, remember.

But this must go on in the name of national pride, as we are only a couple of weeks away from being a great sporting nation. We must not complain. The national pride will purify me from dengue, and others from their souls.

Pride...

The only passage, along the drain, to the main road is stinking with shit. Hundreds of them produce quintals of it everyday. There is no bathroom, toilets, drinking water for them while they toil from dawn to dusk. Tall grasses doubled up as walls to protect modesty. Civilised didn't like that. Grasses lost the battle of modesty. Guards sprang up to protect the civilisation. Pathway cleared of grasses were patrolled by guards. Some young girls and middle aged women stayed put. They waited for the civilised and their soldiers to move away. Later, they couldn't even wait. Bared bottoms didn't inflict or invite shame. It is only when we absolve ourselves of the feeling of shame that we are bestowed with national pride.

Medals..

What medals are we going to give away as prizes in the Common Wealth Games? Is it gold, silver, bronze? Kalmadi has a better idea. Let him give away all those dark-skinned, malnourished men and women who have not yet perished while building these grand stadiums, swanky flyovers and apartments. We don't want to touch them anyways. He can keep all the gold, silver and bronze for himself. Those men and women who are still left can be hung on the walls displaying the grandeur of a great sporting nation. Erotic!