CWG 2010 – First a trickle, then a drizzle and then a TORRENT

The title of this post is inspired by a line in an article that featured on the The Calcutta Telegraph newspaper. This one-liner was used to describe the crescendo effect in India’s medal triumph in the 19th edition of the Commonwealth Games held at Delhi. With an event of such international importance happening in India and sportspersons from all fields striving hard to prove their mettle in their home ground, I could not refrain from capturing special moments these laudable achievers offered us. Many a times, our national flag was hoisted before the medals podium. Many a times, our national anthem was played before an awestruck audience and proud winners.

I list down, in this post, all gold medals that our Indian sportspersons won in the 19th edition of Commonwealth Games, Delhi starting Oct 3-14, 2010. The shower of gold began on us on the 5th of October. On this day, we won 5 gold medals from shooting and wrestling.

Shooting

1)10 m Air Rifle Men pair event - Abhinav Bindra, Gagan Narang - win the first gold medal in CWG 2010 for India.

2)25m Pistol pair event- Rahi Sarnobat, Anisa Sayyed

Wrestling

3)Greco Roman style 96 kg men - Anil Kumar

4)Greco Roman style 74 kg men – Sanjay Kumar

5)Greco Roman style 60 kg men – Ravinder Singh

The quest for gold proceeded in full vigor with sportspersons from weightlifting arena joining in.

Shooting

6)10m Air Rifle Men (individual) - Gagan Narang

7) 25m pistol women (individual) - Anisa Sayid

8) 50m pistol men (individual) - Omkar Singh

Weightlifting

9) 58 kg category Women - Renu Bala Chanu

Wrestling

10) Greco Roman style 55 kg men - Rajendra Kumar

11) Greco Roman style 69 kg men - Ravi Kumar

Wrestling, Weightlifting and Shooting emerged the strong areas for India.

Shooting

12) Pairs 25 m Rapid Fire Pistol Shooting Men - Vijay Kumar and Gurpreet Singh

13) 10m Air Pistol Pairs Men - Omkar Singh and Gurpreet Singh

Wrestling

14) Freestyle Women 55kg - Geeta

The archers joined chorus with fellow Indian comrades. Women clinched gold in wrestling and ensured a near clean sweep; much like men did in Greco Roman style wrestling.

Archery

15) Women team recurve - Dola Banerjee, Dipika Kumari and Bombayala Devi

Shooting

16) Men's 50m Rifle three Positions (Pairs) - Gagan Narang and Imran Hassan

17) Men's 25m Rapid Fire Pistol - Vijay Kumar

18) 10m air pistol event Men (individual) - Omkar Singh

Wrestling

19) 59Kg Women Freestyle Wrestling - Alka Tomar

20) 67Kg Women Freestyle Wrestling - Anitha

The shower of gold medals continued unabated for the nation. However, it was localized over the rain bearing areas of shooting, archery, wrestling and weightlifting.

Shooting

21) 25m Centre fire Pistol (Pairs) – Vijay Kumar and Harpreet Singh

22) 50m men's rifle 3 (individual) event – Gagan Narang

Wrestling

23) 60kg Freestyle Men - Yogeshwar Dutt

24) 74kg Freestyle Men - Narsingh Pancham Yadav

Archery

25) Women Individual Recurve - Dipika Kumari

Tennis figured in the list of sports that won India gold on Oct 10, 2010. The day offered a pot pourri of golds.

26) Men's 25m Centre fire Pistol – Harpreet Singh

27) Archery Recurve Men Individual – Rahul Banerjee

28) 66kg Men Freestyle wrestling – Sushil Kumar

29) Tennis Men Single – Somdev Dev Varman

On 11, Oct 2010, India added only one gold medal to its kitty. However, the day witnessed a remarkable feat. Gold, Silver and Bronze in women's discus throw were all won by Indians. The podium shone brightly with these valorous women and nation's flag flew higher like never before.

30) Discus Throw Women – Krishna Punia

Athletics was for long deemed a drought prone arena, since 1958 Cardiff Games where Milkha Singh proved his prowess by winning a gold in 400 yards track event. On Oct 12, 2010, the shower of medals that brought merry to the nation turned into a heavy torrent bringing unprecedented joyous and proud moments. The long term drought was over.

31) Women Pairs 10m Air Pistol - Heena Sidhu and Annu Raj Singh

32) 4*400 women's relay event athletics - A.C. Ashwini, Manjeet Kaur, Mandeep Kaur and Sini Jose

Neatly completing an act of tribute to their coach - Gurbaksh Singh Sandhu, the Indian boxers won three gold medals. And the Indians went ping pong in merry, winning gold in Table Tennis for the first time.

33) Men's 62 kg light-welterweight boxing event - Manoj Kumar

34) Men's Boxing Flyweight (52 kg) event - Suranjoy Mayengbam Singh

35) Men's Super Heavyweight (Over 91kg) Boxing event - Paramjeet Samota

36) Table Tennis men's doubles - Achanta Sharat Kamal and Subhojit Saha

Dreams of a second place in the overall ranking in CWG 2010 and total medals over one hundred were turned into reality by Indian badminton players and the country's national game, hockey, earning a silver.

37) Badminton women's doubles event - Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponappa

38) Badminton women's singles event - Saina Nehwal

The above list looks flabbergasting for a nation highly undervalued in multi sports events, even by its own people. With such achievements, Indian sportspersons had every reason to party with huge gusto and we, Indians, loved getting drenched in this torrent.

THRIVE …

Prologue:

Back in 2006, I wrote a short story for a Flash Fiction competition in my office.

The contest imposed a word limit and insisted that the piece of fiction start with the sentence -- On a dark and foggy night, a small figure lay huddled on the railway tracks leading to the Bangalore station.

Now, I post below, the entry, I wrote for the contest. It got a special mention then.

Article: (I chose to name it Thrive .. and that's the title for this blog post as well)

Thrive ...

On a dark and foggy night, a small figure lay huddled on the railway tracks leading to the Bangalore station. I drew close by; a girl lay there, it seemed I knew her since my birth – had to be so as she resembled me in every way. Astounded by the similarities, I stood there, holding her in my arms, feeling an eerie sense of weightlessness.

I was left staring at her pale eyes, face marked with wrinkles. She was weary of deep thought, helplessness and fear of failure. Her intensely morose look held me in silence and she softly uttered – “Life holds no meaning to me, no more. I have failed to accomplish what I wanted to!” Her voice revealed strong pessimism, lack of drive to make her dreams come true, haste, pandemonium and much more. She was choked – choked out of peer pressure, her accountability to her family, a burden of satisfying everyone around her which she took on her out of her own volition.

Just as she hung her head in shame and frustration, not willing to talk more about her pitiable state for which she took sole responsibility, I took my turn to speak . In a solemn tone, I tried to make her understand that a person derives the energy of fulfilling his/her ambitions out of sheer self-faith, being selfish about one’s own interests to a sensible extent that peers, parents and their thoughts cannot intrude that private space.

Hitting it harder than ever, I said, “Thrive , FIRST for your self , then think of others around you!!”. We talked, one at a time and I silently, inferred !!!

She had lots of dreams, profound interest in many diverse subjects, in academic and arts and was capable of excelling in all fields. However, her intention to keep everyone happy with her choices weighed upon her extensively and thrust her into a hollow circle of failure. She had gone off the tangent into the circular trap and there was no getting back. Unable to overcome the inertia of her negative thoughts, her helplessness only increased and my words imparted no change in her.

At this moment, I let her go and climbed on to an elevation off the track. I turned back and saw her run over by a train, more aptly, a behemoth of pessimism and fear, squashing her dreams even before they came into existence in this material world.

A loud screech and a sudden halt woke me up , the train arrived at Bangalore Cantontment station. I got down with just one thought in my mind “Thrive , FIRST for yourself , nurture your dreams boldly and give them a form , don't give them up in fear of others petty opinions!”

My Name is GUL and I am not a terrorist!

My Name is GUL, Gulmohar and I am not a terrorist.

I am a tree, one of the many, scalded and bleached by irresponsible and ignominious human activities. Bridges, buildings, flyovers, foot over bridges, road-widening projects, name a commercial activity and people axe us to death mercilessly. There is an unanswered question that keeps ringing in my mind – “Why do people slay us when we provide them shade from scorching sun, cleanse the air that they breathe, decorate their avenues with an orange red hue in full bloom and nurture life of many forms like insects, squirrels, birds and even their young ones in nests?” Practically, photosynthetically and aesthetically, we resolve to stand by humans, enduring bouts of negative emotions from them.

We share a common family name – Gulmohar, Laal is my first name. Our relatives in Canada and America are known as Royal Poinciana. Some in Taiwan and New Zealand are known as Flame of Forest. Scientists who studied us long back gave us an incomprehensible Latin name – Delonix Regia. They state, we hail from an island named Madagascar and are best suited to live in tropical and sub-tropical climates.

In India, we are grown as a street tree, also found in botanical gardens and big parks .Very few mansions shelter us within the limits of their compound wall. People admire us for our fern like foliage, the many leaflets that are vivacious in the morning and fold up lazily in the evening. They adore our red-orange flower canopy. They run around our thick, rounded barks, children merrily and adults shyly and romantically. Some manage to climb on us and play funny pranks on others. Squirrels, crows, million insects thrive in the labyrinth of our branches. Bees hover busily and hungrily over flowery cups of nectar.

I was born and brought up on 100 ft road, Indiranagar, Bangalore. My parents are no more. Last month, they gave way for a new cosmetics outlet and retail showroom. They were axed to death in my presence. For once, I felt I should have a voice like humans do, then I would have shouted aloud for help. I wished fervently that I could move my branches like human limbs, then I would have stopped the atrocities on my parents right when the first crack fell on my mom’s bark. All I did was sway violently in the chill breeze that evening, unable to wreak vengeance on my foes.

We, Gulmohars, are naturalized trees and I have a dozen half brothers and half sisters, tens of cousins, in and around Indiranagar, some in Koramangala too.
My parents always cherished their young days. They reminisced kind gestures made by people who took immense care of them. They basked in abundant sunlight, drank sweet water from the table below, derived indispensable nutrients from the soil that smelt fresh. The air was laced with sweet smell of their comrades – laburnum and champa. They were cherubic with dense, verdi green foliage and bright vermillion flowers.

In the last decade, their health condition deteriorated drastically and so did the attitude of common man towards us. The water turned saline and their xylem vessels, like mine, were choked with salt deposits much like atherosclerosis in humans with high cholesterol. They had breathing difficulties as their leaves were coated with dust, soot, sulphur and high concentration of air pollutants. Their leaves turned from green to an insipid grey color. The velvety texture of their leaves was replaced by a puckered appearance, much like the wrinkles on an octogenarian’s face. Their flowers wilted faster, they lacked the bright and lustrous shades. They grew bald even during spring with only empty branches spreading out in an eerie agony. Much to their despair, they saw all these signs of ageing in my siblings and me at a much younger age.

How could people turn a blind eye to such obvious signs of destruction? Does their education not impart basic knowledge of environment and its timid balance? They did not give a hoot to my parents’ calls for help and change. Instead, they massacred us in large numbers as if we were traitors, outlaws and terrorists.

In a mad rat race towards development, man lays down concrete roads, widens them, digs and mines to reach an abyss, builds glass and aluminium panel buildings, stifles the soils with artificial fertilizers, pesticides and insecticides.. an endless list of harmful chemicals, chokes it even further with plastic bags and garbage, emits plumes of heavy, stifling smoke through his various activities. Man no longer wants the chill breeze and lower temperatures that trees provide, they have artificial air conditioning systems. Man no longer wants our fruits, they want to genetically engineer them to their requirements and tweak our very identity. Man no longer wants rain to fill the water table, he no longer wants us to stop floods for him or bind the soil in its place. Man no longer wants balance in the biosphere; he want to be an omnipotent and ruthless power despite being blessed with super brain faculties.
Man no longer wants peace and he decapitates us like terrorists?

CWG 2010 Opening Ceremony: Glitz and Glory

On 3rd October 2010, the whole nation, starry eyed, awaited the opening ceremony of the 19th edition of the Commonwealth Games in Delhi, India at the Jawaharlal Nehru stadium. Shadowed by only negative attributes in the last month, the games and the nation bore the brunt of endless scams; embezzlement of public money; shoddy, unfinished and delayed work; innumerable reminders of unlivable conditions in the athlete’s village, collapsing foot over bridge and false ceilings, caving in roads; slaughter by heavy rain and inundation. It seemed that the nation had to gear for more embarrassment with the commencement of the games.

However, yesterday, thousands of people from Delhi and outside buried the hatchet and came to laud the glitz and glory showcased by a nation that possesses prolific culture. A long, boring conversation between Charu Sharma and his colleague, the anchors for the show on DD; long commercial breaks made the audience impatient in many homes. The channel Doordarshan, the official broadcaster of the Delhi CWG 2010, provides LIVE High Definition content of the games to all its viewers.

The opening ceremony began with huge posse of percussionists from all over India marching to the forefront, playing bold music. The central dais was huge and had a small kid, Keshava from Pondichery at the tabla. He was oblivious of the many eyes watching him as he played the tabla. He shook his small hair curls and locks, his face wore a constant smile, as he enjoyed every musical moment in true maestro Zakhir Hussain style, the crowd went into a crescendo of applause.

A presentation on the various forms of classical dance in India was the next grand event – groups of Bharatanatyam, Mohiniaattam, Kuchipudi, Manipuri, Odissi and Kathak dancers performed to classical tunes, first singly and then in unison. Next was the turn of thousands of children, neatly forming a pattern of hands folded in welcome – the Swagatham symbol against the backdrop of a song rendered by renowned singer Hariharan. The children swiftly changed their hanging robes and created the tricolor. Shrouded under a huge white cloth, they used altha (red dye) and created an image of mehandi on palm in no time. At this point, the audience roared in cheer and amazement and it was clear that India was doing every essential act to recover its lost pride.

The central showstopper in yesterday’s opening ceremony was the 70 crores rupees worth aerostat held aloft, above the central dais. Huge in perimeter, with many reflector panels in its base, it created magical lighting and stunning visual effects. Events happening far below on the floor of the stadium were displayed vividly on the aerostat's screen. Hogging all the limelight, this helium balloon added the quintessential element of BIG scale grandeur to the ceremony, making it a sheer visual treat to millions.

There were speeches by heads of India and the British Empire – our Prime Minister, Mr.Manmohan Singh addressed the gathering, he appeared sober and preoccupied. The head of OC – Mr. Suresh Kalmadi was next in turn and welcomed by incessant booing from the crowd. Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales declared the games open, reading out Queen Elizabeth II's message. To my surprise, the President of India – Ms. Prathiba Patil possessed more energy and fervor than anyone did in the stadium, she announced boldly – “Let the games begin”.


The contingents from 71 nations across the world marched in pride and cheer waving to the audience. The previous games host, Australia, led the parade followed by other nations in alphabetical order, with India, the current host, marching in the end. As the various contingents marched, the name and the national flag of their country appeared vibrantly on the aerostat. The Indian contingent was led by Olympic Gold medalist, Abhinav Bindra who also delivered the oath of the games in a composed manner and with clear diction. The Queen’s baton relay continued in the stadium passing from hands of one Indian sports icon to other - Vijendra Singh, bronze medalist in Boxing, Beijing Olympics 2008, Mary Kom, 5 times world champion in women’s boxing, Samaresh Jung, nicknamed the "Golden Finger" for his medal kitty in 2006 CWG and Sushil Kumar, a bronze medalist in wrestling in Beijing Olympics, 2008. The Commonwealth Games flag was hoisted with impeccable military honor.

The cultural extravaganza continued in full throttle in front of the athletes’ teams assembled in the floor of the stadium. There was a pompous display of rich culture and diversity in India by the Indian Railways. A temporary, but beautifully crafted rail engine wriggled into the stadium to the tune of Chaiyya Chaiyya song, with its many coaches displaying varied elements of a common man’s life in Indian states. There were dabbawaalas from Mumbai, bangle stores, sweets and condiments shops, cycle repair shops, porters walking and folk dancers from all parts of the country dancing to lively music. The celebration was huge and it was like a Kumbha Mela/fair.

Highly talented artists crafted art, using sand, on a screen and depicted the Dandi march – salt Satyagraha movement led by the father of our nation. The brilliant piece of work was thrown open to full view on the aerostat. Prince Charles and Princess Camilla were caught staring at the sand art in rapt attention. Towards the end of this creation, a Gandhi like figure, in rich illumination of laser beams arose from the central stage. There was an astounding display of the various Aasanas in Yoga by school children. This event ended with a human figure in a yoga posture with dazzling laser beams and rich lighting effects emerging from the central dais. The delegates from various nations wore a completely look, a look of ratification that when it comes to richness of culture, color, life and vivacity, India is Incredible, and is undoubtedly, unbeatably the BEST.

The maestro AR Rahman arrived in the last segment of the ceremony along with an elaborate and ornate array of fireworks springing up from every corner of the stadium. He rendered the CWG 2010 theme song accompanied by synchronized gyrations from a group of dancers. The folk dance artists were still on the floor performing their classy steps to his tune. More power packed than his theme song, was his rendition of Jai Ho song that sent the stadium into reeling applause, cheer and uproar. Jai ho truly works out magic – be it the Oscar awards podium or the Delhi Jawaharlal Nehru stadium. To mark the end, Rahman sang loudly – Jiyo, Utho, Badho, Jeetho; bolstering further, the message – Come out and Play!

Label Guide

Hello All,

Hitting over a half century in my blog, I found navigation to my older posts clumsy. I decided to use labels to enable classification and easier access to my earlier posts. This post is a guide that briefly describes the labels I have used and their intent. I intend to update this post as I add more posts and use more labels. I hope this label based classification will provide a broad idea of what Furore Scribendi has to offer to its readers.

1) Bangalore Magic - I currently reside in Bangalore and this label points to all articles about Bangalore, my life here, info+entertaintment here.

2) CWG 2010 - All articles pertaining to the Commonwealth Games held at Delhi from Oct 3-14, 2010.

3) Intro - This is the first post I wrote on my blog.

4) Music and Movie review - I am music and movie buff, love Hindi film music lots. An equal fan of Tamil classics, old movie songs and Carnatic music, look out in this space for some reviews of films and music.

5) My fav articles - this section consists of some articles written/posted by eminent journalists/persons who have inspired my thoughts. I have put up these articles for my personal/future reference and I can vouch that these will offer a good read.

6) On a serious note - This is exclusively MY SECTION where I have penned down my thoughts and opinions. These are mostly issues of national importance, though some generic and international issues may also surface.

7) Quizzing - I like quizzing and look at it as a very productive and involving hobby. Please refer to this section for some Q & A.

8) Travel - I am fond of traveling and so is my husband. Together, we have visited many places, predominantly in the state of Karnataka, more precisely, in South India. This section consists of some travelogue entries.

9) Short stories - This section consists of some short stories/fiction.

10) Help - Look for any help or general blog related information here.

11) Book Review - A brief review of some books I have read. Not a voracious reader, still grab a book when I get time.
12)Foodies' Sphere - A new label added on July 10, 2011 to accomadate posts related to cooking/eating , everything related to food.
13) Sporty Affair - My observations and related deductions on sports and sport related activities appear under this heading.