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Journalism of Courage
A ubiquitous feature of international travel is the Indian techie. The expat IT/software professional is now just about everywhere, even at the Olympics. A group of 10 TCS engineers are in Greece servicing banking clients as long-term resident experts. They were seen, families and all, waving the Indian flag at the shooting events on August 14.
Said Rupesh Agarwal, formerly of Gurgaon but for the past six months a TCS consultant in Athens, ‘‘We were hoping to see Anjali Bhagwat or Suma Shirur win a medal. It didn’t happen. But we’ll be there in the coming days too. We’ll be cheering Leander and Mahesh on Monday.’’
Incidentally, the big-ticket game the TCS techies will miss is the hockey match against Holland. ‘‘We tried for tickets’’, said one of them, ‘‘but they were sold out.’’ Enough Dutch fans can be expected to travel across Europe to cheer their team. From the response of the Indian community here — including Satish Kumar, a groundsman at the hockey stadium and a Greek of Indian origin — Dilip Tirkey’s band will not be short of support either.
Mr Everyman Minister
An enthusiastic man, wearing blue jeans, a blue checked shirt and white sports shoes, was all over the Markopoulos Shooting Centre on Saturday. He was cheering the Indian participants, urging shooter Manavjit Singh to pose for a photograph with his gun, walking into the outdoor restaurant with the impish smile of a man enjoying himself.
Sports Minister Sunil Dutt must be India’s most unVIP-like VIP. He was just so normal at the shooting venue that the rest of the Indians in the crowd almost felt proud. Yet, despite the fans he won today, Dutt needs to hire new schedule managers. On Saturday, he called every Indian at the Games to dinner. As it happened, the timing clashed with Kunjarani Devi’s possible gold-winning event.
The previous day, Dutt called a press conference at a hotel close to the airport and far from the Main Press Centre (MPC).
The press conference was at 10.00 am. At 11.00 am, Jacques Rogge, IOC president, had called his press conference at the MPC, one of those star-billing events no journalist wanted to miss. It was impossible to be at both press conferences. Someone in the Indian sports ministry goofed up with timings.
The Comeback kids
Athens would not have been halfway as successful without the 60,000 unpaid volunteers — mostly students and young people — who have taken time off to man media hotels, the athletes’ villages, the press centre, drive buses, run the canteens. Newspapers here are celebrating the return of ‘‘volunteerism’’ but wonder if it will last after the Olympics.
The temporary revving up of Greek national pride — after being derided by the IOC, which at one stage publicly wondered if the Games would take place at all and asked Sydney if it was ready to be a back-up venue — is reflected in the number of Greek expats who’ve ‘‘come home’’. Over 150 nations are represented in the volunteer army, mostly by the Greek equivalent of NRIs.
Alexander at the main press Centre newsdesk has a plum English accent. Not surprising, considering he’s British of Greek origin. Kristos in the IT department took leave from his techie job in Washington to help his ‘‘father’s homeland’’ with the Games. Now he likes it so much, he’s shopping for a permanent job in Athens, preferring languid sun-soaked Europe to the rush and bluster of America.
Diet Seattle
Not everybody in Athens is happy with the Games. A collective of environmental and development activists drawn from the Greek Social Forum, the Agon Initiative, the Genoa Initiative and the Movement for Popular Struggle are spearheading what they call the ‘‘Anti-2004 Campaign’’. They say the construction mania will destroy Athens’ ecology. They also tap into a Greek perception hat the Ancient Olympics were somehow pure and the modern Games are too commercial, a juggernaut benefiting only a few. Even so, there are no Seattle/WTO type street demonstrations.
