Apologies to be harping about the Commonwealth games again but then every time you step out of your home the common mess hits you in the face and your mind goes into overdrive. Yesterday I passed one of the 50 luxury loos being built for the Games. This is one is a horrendous structure in coloured glass and is tucked away in the corner of a park of a not so upmarket shopping centre in South Delhi, one that I doubt any visitor to the games would drop by. The structure is big by loo standard but actually the size of let us say a drawing room. And quite ugly too! Now @ 1 crore a piece (10 million) it seems obscene. Come to think about it what we are desperately trying to raise to make pwhy sustainable is the cost of 3 loos! (cost of building planet why: a guest house + a children’s centre).
Something is terribly wrong. The Games are under the scanner of all vigilance agencies of the land as corruption seems rampant. As I had written earlier it seems that these Games are an opportunity for all to line their bottomless pockets. So what if the work is shoddy, the material used sub standard and the infrastructure shaky. As long as some become richer, all is well! But as if that was not enough now a UK agency is investigating a dubious money transfer whereby large sums of Indian tax payer’s hard earned money has been given to a shady individual who runs a one man show in London where he provides portable loos, cars, security screens and also hold your breath, consultancy for costume design @ 25 000 pounds a month! This is getting as Alice would say curiouser and curiouser. It is also making the blood of the likes of me boil!
When questioned those in power are quick to either pass the buck or try to appeal to the pride of the country excuse. What pride! One would, as a proud Indian like to wish the whole thing away if that could be done. Stadia are not ready and even if they are they may fall on our heads, the city is a holy mess and only a miracle can salvage things. Maybe we as Indians can be proud of the fact that we have mastered the art of corruption!
Did we need such a useless and mindless extravaganza to acquire pride? What pride is there when people have lost their homes, their livelihood? In all this hullabaloo one seems to have forgotten the people who have lost everything courtesy the Games! It makes me physically sick! These zillions of rupees could have been put to better use. In our very country, the one that is busy trying to acquire misplaced pride, children die of hunger every dayand people are still desperately trying to master the art of surviving. But that is one end of the spectrum. At the other they are mastering the art of corruption. And somewhere in between we are watching helpless.
