Many things, many thoughts and many missed opportunities

My mind is so full of things at this moment, don't know what to write and what to leave. Many things are out of context, but are still very much in context. Take for example a simple visitor visa for a country that survives on tourism. Now would you expect them to keep your passport with them for 5 weeks! Yes, that was no writing mistake, the Bahamas visa application centre kept my passport for almost 5 weeks! And just when I had lost hopes that I would make it to the USA as scheduled, it came. Not because they were concerned about my travel plans, but because there was a lot of persuasion and official requests from many people.

Pune hosted Common Wealth Youth Games 2008 recently. Loads of road work was planned for the CYG. Take for example the Baner Road. Now it was supposed to be concreted before the games. That did happen only in parts, but will have to give credit to the municipality for finishing up the work with tar roads before the games. And hold your breath, they actually managed to beautify most of the roads around university and hinjewadi/balewadi, within 48 hrs! Dividers were put up, reflectors were fixed, huge sign boards were placed, potted plants were put up under fly overs, lush green grass lawns in some dividers were made within no time! Everybody, including the media went crazy in wondering how come Pune municipality, whose trademark is to delay things, and to delay things more - they could pull up such nice work within no time. Sigh - they are not that prompt rest of the time, still ...

Here is a glimpse of the youth 'sobhayatra' just before the games. I watched it on F.C. Road. I am really sorry to have missed out all the action in CYG. Asked a friend to come for the closing ceremony celebrations, she said - come on, who watches CYG ? That to, live? ... well, many people thought otherwise and I guess the CYG was a success in terms of getting some decent audience.



One thing still puzzles me. What are we celebrating through common wealth countries' sports activities? Having an informal organization to gather and do something for democracy, humanity and all is appreciable, but why choose common wealth countries? And why appoint the Queen as the head still? Any mention of common wealth countries invokes the thoughts of BritishRaaj, and does not go well with our celebrations of membership and all ... I continue to be puzzled ...

Well, so many thoughts, so many contexts ... will keep it for some other day. In the mean time, let me not forget to mention the spectacular success of our test team, of the veteran batsmen and the satisfaction of seeing Australian cricket team on their back foot :D Hail the indian cricket team, hail the luck or techniques of Dhoni's captainship (have not yet made up my mind either way).

Hope you all had a great Deepavali...