At last the manic days are over and Delhi, as well as the country, exulting in triumph, can breathe a sigh of relief. The national Capital was virtually shut down on Thursday but not many were complaining. There was an atmosphere of tense excitement as people made plans to watch the telecast of the closing ceremony of the Commonwealth Games, hoping that nothing would go wrong; not now, and not after Saina Nehwal’s magnificent gold that put India at second place in the medals tally, edging England out.
And nothing did. The grand finale ran to three hours — longer than your average Hindi film — but rather like the best of Bollywood, it had a bit of everything for everyone. Traditional classics (martial art displays), jingoism (military bands), emotion (the slow, long march past of the players), cheesy comedy (Shera’s slow-motion goodbye), youthful energy (thousands of well-coordinated schoolchildren and volunteers), electronic wizardry (a compelling laser show and the hovering Aerostat) and moments of attention-wandering boredom (platitude-ridden speeches by Suresh Kalmadi and others, exactly like overwritten Hindi movie dialogue). Was it really necessary to thank aviation minister Praful Patel for making the planes land on time?
Most important, and this is what pulled off the huge and elaborate extravaganza, there was no shortage of item numbers. Even the most diehard Bollywood buffs admit that there comes a moment when you wonder when the movie will end. And precisely on the dot, along comes a glitzy, madcap, rocking song-and-dance sequence to make it a blockbuster. It is perfectly timed to make the audience feel that they have got their money’s worth.
On the face of it, it was an unlikely, even audacious, experiment to believe that a musical medley like that ending could come together. Combining classical vocalists Shubha Mudgal and Zilla Khan, crooners Usha Uthup and Shiamak Davar, regional rockers Ila Arun and Kailash Kher and Bollywood rappers such as Shaan, Sunidhi Chauhan, Shanker and Sukhvinder, with traditional music and fusion bands, sounds like an improbable, even risky venture, without hitting a series of jarring and discordant notes. How could so many disparate singing styles and rhythms, or numbers as distinctive as Ab ke Sawan, Allah ke Bande, Desi Girl, We are the Champions and Where’s the Party Tonight? be strung together into a virtually seamless, foot-tapping whole? But take-off it did and had a packed stadium of 60,000 on its feet.
There are few places on earth where it could happen. Superbly inventive and crafted though the Scottish tableau was, it was, with its bagpipes, Highland airs, tartans and kilts, just that — very Scottish. But messy, mix-up India, globalised and atomised, chaotic but confident, came across with colourful and youthful abandon. Its cacophony made comprehensible because of its singular voice.
After months of disorganisation, confusion, corruption charges and a growing sense that the show would collapse before it began, it was an astonishing reversal of ill fortune. I was in London in the days before the Games opened and the insults were stinging. Indian friends cringed in embarrassment as British commentators, in their sardonic way, were patronising in their humour. “I am happy to tell you,” said a guest on a TV discussion on the CWG, “that my wife has just returned from Delhi in one piece. She survived its rain and raging fevers.”
India not only also survived but turned out to be remarkably fit. In field and track, at the net, the goalpost and the shooting range, it surpassed all targets. It is, of course, to be expected that athletes and players will perform at their peak on home ground but to see its young men and women — especially women — come from remote corners, from big cities, small towns, and some from unheard-of villages, to compete and win for their country was a moving experience. It restored the country’s image as a land of opportunity and equality.
Those who compared the Games to a big fat Indian wedding were right. On Thursday, Indians could have danced all night.
