Delhi CWG 2010 has been rung in - after all the misses and the glitches!

As I saw the inauguration of the Commonwealth games amidst the pomp and show against a rich backdrop of colours, I was proud to be an Indian. Despite the glitches, sloth and overall inefficiency that marked the run up to the games the ‘shopwindow’ that one was fortunate to witness at the inauguration showed once again that we’ve it in us to excel!

But why do we do it so haphazardly? I was aghast to see Sheila Dikshit making tall claims as to how she’d turned it around over the last seven days and blamed everyone else for the setbacks and cited interference in her work(by none other than her Lieutenant Governor, himself). She has also claimed that had she been given a free run in the organizing of the games there would have been no slip ups whatsoever. She thinks that the general public has forgotten the fact that she’s been Delhi’s Chief minister for the last so many years, her party has been ruling at the centre for all those years and wants them to believe that she could not get to do the right things because vested interests wanted to put her down!! Why can’t she be graceful enough, even at this late stage, to accept her part of the blame, I wonder?

That’s because of our ‘chalta hai’ attitude – everything goes. We do things at the last moment and finally take shelter behind a passable outcome and claim it as a success!!!

To cite an example, a bit far removed from this episode but related albeit in an indirect manner, is the way many worthies have claimed that our country will become a superpower in 2025. The interesting fact is that none of them have clearly laid down or even suggested the milestones, that need to be achieved towards the run up to ’25, which is absolutely essential. Perhaps, most of them are only well aware that they wouldn’t be alive to answer the uncomfortable question if the country does not make it! Such aims to be achieved have to be backed up with sustained hard work, dedication and the important aspect of everyone pulling along to achieve a series of intermediate milestones.

Or are we happy just to be bumbling our way to superpower status with all the corruption and inefficiency that we see around us? I hope not!