The Desperate Host

There was once a poor divorced man who went out with this fine lady. He saved up some money everyday cutting down from his two sons’ education fee. His date was at an expensive place. At the end of the date he succeeded in impressing the lady. His uneducated sons died of starvation. He was happy that he impressed the outsider.

Delhi hosted the commonwealth games in October last year. The opening ceremony was appreciated by the world. Prince Charles was smiling. The fireworks were pretty attractive. The biggest helium balloon in the world was a spectacle. The cultural performances were executed brilliantly. There was a lot more to this event. The ceremony took place in Jawaharlal Nehru stadium. A packed stadium witnessed it all with enthusiasm and a sense of patriotism. Most of the people were proud of the fact that their country could host an international sports event and that too, pretty gracefully. Most of them felt that the world would look at their country and think of it as a developed place with a world class sports infrastructure. I was dying to be happy.

JLN was renovated for this event. The whole complex was rebuilt and the facilities were upgraded to host the games. The stadium was originally built to host the 1982 Asian Games. The stadium was in a pestilence-stricken condition in between this period. Nobody ever cared. Athletes worked hard with inferior facilities. Footballers trained in hard and uneven grounds and tilted goalposts. The athletes from countries like china worked with decent facilities and got better results. Their facilities were originated for their own use. Their country invested in the players and cared about them. While on the other hand, India invested in the infrastructure for the primary purpose of hosting the events. The facilities were only touched by the local athletes after the visitors came, performed and went back. India did spend money on sports infrastructure, but only at the time of HOSTING events. Sustained failures over the years were never alarming enough. The Asian counterparts’ developments were never in consideration. The way they overtook India in this period was not insulting at all for the decision makers.

Following the union budget is a bitter blow every year, if the follower cares about Indian sports her/himself. The allocation towards the Ministry of youth affairs and Sports for the period of 2003-2004 was Rs 385 Crore. It rose gradually till 2008-2009(Rs 890 cr). The figure tripled in the next fiscal year to 2985! The figure was similar for 2010 to 2011. The worst sign of the future came in at the arrival of this year’s figure-Rs 1000 crore. The intentions are clear and out in the open. Their prioritization is fundamentally ill. The allocation is focused on short term growth. The stimulus was only for the sprint of hosting, not the marathon of long term development of the disciplines and the athletes. When the event has gone, nobody cares anything about Athletics. The CWG ‘phase’ is over. But on the bright side, the hospitality was admirable and so were the results (only because the top athletes don’t take this event seriously with respect to the Olympics and the Asian games).

I could not bear to watch the opening ceremony. I looked at the stadium and realized how the direction of the blowing wind is still not decided from my country. Having played at the same place for the past 5 years, it was painful to look at world class infrastructure developed for showing a rosy picture of Indian sports. An Indian athlete never got anything anywhere near this to prepare in the past. I waited for the post CWG era to believe what was told (this will be used by the local athletes in the future, come out and play scheme). It’s the same old story. The stadium has below-par maintenance. A few doping scandals showed us all the ideology behind all this. I wish I could be proud of this. I wish I could be proud of those miracles. I wish I could be proud of focusing on the image rather than REAL GROWTH. We did look good in the ceremony, didn’t we?