Olympic daze

A geo-political shift is taking place before our eyes.

The Olympics are 2 days old and China is clearly showing that the years of preparation for the show, the amazing amount of energy directed towards winning, the obsessive focus on excellence by the Chinese state has paid dividends (in terms of gold medals at least).

After so many years of seeing the US on the top of the heap in every Olympics I can remember - to have China take that place is something totally novel (for me at least).

Our own national team that India sent looked shabby and comical as they walked in. The ladies wore three different kinds of dresses. Here they are representing a billion folks from Bharat and they can't even co-ordinate what they will all wear on the day... To my untrained eye, it looked like there were more officials than athletes (and why we have officials walking in the parade with the sportsfolk who have sweated so hard to make it to the big stage is another mystery).

Anyway, the point is that China has arrived. If nothing else, the billions of dollars that they spent on the big show seems to have given the bang for the buck. Shock and awe all around.

Our own standing in the world continues to reflect our lady athletes confused dress sense - India is seen as bumbling and irrelevant - a sleeping giant that has its own million Lilliputian issues to deal with. A look at the papers seems to bear this out - most of our political parties are hell-bent on showing their greatness by making sure all signs are painted in the state language. Our streets are festooned with posters wishing 'Happy Birthday' to various assorted local politicians (many looking more thuggish by the day). Our streets reek with garbage and we step over it and try to think of other things.

Recently when a local paper dared to write a small satirical piece about a plan to spend an obscene amount of money to make a statue off the coast of Mumbai, showing the great warrior Maharaja Shivaji (and making sure that it is taller than the Statue of Liberty), party members of a certain party broke in and vandalised the house of the editor of the op-ed piece.

Meanwhile, for better or for worse, we have the spectacle of a proud and cash rich China - who as a nation seems determined to carve out a place for itself in the world.

Is the American century over? Nations rise and empires fall. My reading these days is of the prophecies made at the height of the Babylonian empire. Where are they today - those great monarchs of the past? And yet in their day it was unthinkable to think of any other power structure.

We live in fascinating times. Hats off to all my friends who are living in and loving China!