CWG !

It was a great show at CWG... Thankfully at least for the 11 days of the games, everyone put aside the falling bridges, flooding rivers, unhygienic accommodation standards, corrupt officials and not meeting deadlines, as thankfully even the rain Gods seem to have become silent spectators to a spectacular show. For a change we watched lot of sports and games and it was not cricket and Doordarshan became a hot TV channel again for a brief while. http://maddeningsilences.blogspot.com/2008/12/doordharshan-zindabad.html.

For a nation where Cricket is a religion and cricketers are Gods, we slowly learnt to discover Gods of smaller sports. Even while Cricinfo.com got bogged down with numerous hits due to our Test series win, we had people coming out with similar interest in our Boxing, Wrestling, Athletics, Shooting , Archery, Hockey, TT & Badminton champions....For the players who must have trained for years, its like a huge welcoming home coming as they suddenly realise the media interest, promises of cash prises and lots of fan support....CWG became a platform for them to claim what was long over due....Thankfully, the games, the players and not to forget the fantastic opening ceremony brought back our senses of feeling proud about being an Indian, as in the two months prior to the games, we were bent up on putting ourselves down with multiple interviews being beamed across various channels, bickering over responsibilities, bad mouthing our own efforts with SMS jokes, FB updates, Tweets and even sending out emails to anyone and everyone not to go to the games/stadiums.

A lot of times, I wonder, how do we become so negative in our approach, communications, thought process and attitudes. Agree that it is a criminal injustice not to punish the guilty, and I do hope the authorities responsible for mixing up their priorities in spending crores of rupees are brought to justice. But then, somewhere it is also a fact that criticising is very easy, while taking the responsibility is not. As a friend recently put it, we always look for compromise when we are wrong but we seek justice when others are wrong. Having said that, its not just the CWG that I think about. Over the past few days, I 've come across multiple incidents where it is becoming increasingly evident that we are more attracted to the negative than to look at the positive. Even if someone is right 99%, we hang on to the 1% that has gone wrong, which in turn works only in spreading negativity amongst everyone and creating a very unpleasant atmosphere. Long back I read a slogan that was posted on an Indian Railways counter in Jayanagar, Bangalore - If you are satisfied with our service, pls tell others... if not, tell us. Some how, that thought has stuck in my mind as I continue to feel that unless we work together in a positive way, there is no way forward.

Stay positive !!!