Mihir Vasavda’s Asiad Diary from China: Missing people, Pork butts, Exotic selfies, Sleepless athletes, bargaining Indians

The architecture is breathtaking and there’s Games branding in whichever direction you look.

But where are the people? There’s a strange, eerie silence on the streets. Entire neighbourhoods are deserted, the metros and buses are empty, and thousands of public-sharing bicycles lying unused.

The mind harks back to reports from eight years ago when the city hosted the G20 Summit and the authorities reportedly ‘convinced’ people to leave the town so that the event could be held peacefully.

The local reporters say everyone is out of town because of the long holidays for the Lunar Festival. Their newspapers and channels, however, claim Hangzhou is emerging as China’s top tourist destination because of the Games.

Who’s right? We’ll never know, perhaps.

Animal safari

Every meal at the football field-sized hall feels like a safari in the animal kingdom.

There’s a braised snake’s head and duck’s liver; an assortment of beef and a ‘beggar’s chicken’. But nothing came close to the variety of pork being served – the poor animal’s every body part was ripped, roasted and served on a platter.

The humble potato remained the last veggie standing. Boiled, fried and baked; mashed, chopped and scooped, the potato made appearances every night for three weeks in different avatars and fought a brave, lonely battle amidst an animal onslaught.

Nothing came close to the variety of pork being served – the poor animal’s every body part was ripped, roasted and served on a platter. (Express Photo)

These are the times when having a persistent family that forces you to carry every Gujju’s SOS food – thepla and khakra – really comes as a blessing.

There’s a rare night when they serve something that resembles a naan and a curry that tastes a lot like the manchurian gravy we get back home.

The next morning, the kingdom hits back. This time, with something unimaginable – a grilled pork’s butt. A friend dares. His observation? “It’s soft.”

Morning runs

To those who think Games like these are a test of a sportsperson’s athletic abilities, think again.

It’s 6.58 in the morning, cold, and pouring down. A young-ish photographer I met five hours ago is dragging his trolley bag with one hand and holding a camera in another. He’s sprinting in the same direction as I am. And on his tired face is an expression questioning his life choices. To be honest, I have a feeling he saw the same thing when he looked at me.

I know it’s 6.58 precisely because, in 2 minutes, our bus to a transport mall will leave. And the driver waits for no one. Miss that, and you are likely to miss the connecting bus to a venue. Miss that one, and you are sure to reach the competition at least an hour late given how far the venues are (on an average day, we travelled at least 150 km – and that’s a conversation estimate).

And so, mini sprinting and race-walking Games take place within the larger Games between journalists of different nationalities. The dining hall becomes the start point. The bus at the transport hub, the finish line.

The 150m of dread every morning.

Beauty queens, pilots and ‘visa counselors’

It’s backbreaking but all of it is worth every drop of sweat.

For, there’s no bigger place than a multi-discipline Games to stumble upon people from different nationalities and backgrounds daily. Some of it is astonishing; some inspiring and a few heartbreaking.

There’s a beauty pageant runner-up in South Korea’s women’s kabaddi team. A pilot in Hong Kong’s rugby side. And a ‘visa counselor’ in Syria’s contingent.

Majd Eddie Ghazal, the high jumper from Damascus, has seen his hometown reduced to ashes following decades of violence. He is forced to travel to neighbouring countries, Lebanon mostly, merely to fly for international competitions. And has to struggle to get a visa because of the colour of his passport.

A look at what the Hangzhou Olympic Sports Center Stadium, nicknamed “the Big Lotus”, looks like in the night

(📹 via @mihirsv ) pic.twitter.com/LUCwvAGtC0

— Express Sports (@IExpressSports) October 8, 2023

But he doesn’t seek sympathy. “(Because of the situation) I’m an expert in embassies, where they are, their addresses when they open when they close, what documents you need for a visa. I’m an expert in this subject,” he jokes.

Sleep deprivation

It’s weird how lack of sleep at Games like these is never spoken about a lot.

Chirag Shetty couldn’t sleep because of illness. Satwiksairaj Rankireddy was up all night because of nerves. Even the all-conquering hero, Neeraj Chopra, couldn’t catch a wink because of anxiety. The double medal winner Parul Chaudhary was up all night before her 5,000m run because she was ‘too tired’ from the steeplechase. And Palak Gulia couldn’t sleep because she was ‘too excited’ for her debut.

The volunteers keep smiling and going out of their way to help you despite working for almost 18-19 hours each night. The organisers are up for longer, shuttling between one meeting to another, travelling from venue to venue. And the drivers ferrying all of us sometimes sleep even less.

All you see around you are tired, sleepless and anxious faces. But they’re all ever smiling. What keeps them going? Gallons of coffee that’s brewed each day.

Translation machines to bridge language barriers. (Express Photo)

Parallel worlds

The Games are a bubble and within that, we exist in two parallel worlds.

When we are within the Games venues, it’s free internet – there’s WhatsApp, Twitter, Instagram, Google… all the daily necessities. Venture a foot outside the marked territory, and you enter the censored zone.

This isn’t restricted only to the virtual world. On the streets near the Village, street signs are both in English and Chinese. But the farther you go from the venues, the fewer English signages become.

And so, it leads to situations where you enter a hospital thinking it is a hotel or get stranded in the middle of nowhere while searching for the Athletes’ Village (bless the two technical officials who walked 3km to help me reach my destination),

The daily press briefings hosted by the organisers mirror this anomaly, too. The conferences follow a routine – the local journalists go first, followed by the visiting pack, and so on.

The foreign journalists want to talk about larger issues – about the athletes from Arunachal Pradesh not getting visas, the North Koreans who smash world records without getting dope tested, the farcical refereeing… the locals want to know about the Games slogan, the food, the mascots and the official anthem.

They don’t ask follow-ups. And if a foreign journalist does, be prepared to be cold-shouldered out of the conference.

Tourists, attractions

A rare, late morning with few India medal events. A friend and I head out to explore the city centre and the fabled West Lake.

At the Olympic Sports Centre subway station, the eyes of a child go wide as he sees us; his jaw drops and he stops eating the pastry. Inside the coach, people stare so hard and long that it’d put the elevator eyes in the Delhi metro to shame.

At the destination station, outside a restroom, a girl walks up to my friend and asks for a selfie. Anti-social and introverted that he is, he refuses. Not even worth a second glance at home, we seem to be exotic here.

On the boat at the West Lake, people ignore the beautiful sights around us. Parents line up their children on the upper deck to pose for a photo with us. Nowhere to escape – especially with neither of us knowing how to swim – we have to oblige. Proper wedding reception feels.

In a city aspiring to be a holiday destination, we, the tourists, became attractions.

Indians, the ‘skilful bargainers’

Indians touched the 100 mark by displaying their skills on the field. And they made an impression with their skills – of a different kind – off the field too.

The athletes spend years training just to prepare for the few hours and minutes of their competition. And when it’s done, they know how to let their hair loose. Some have binged on the unlimited buffet at the Village, a few have gone on exploration tours around the city but most have rushed to the nearby clothes market and gone on a shopping spree.

Indians, unsurprisingly, were among the hundreds of athletes who visited the Sijiqing market. And the China Daily noted that the Indians, who went there on the opening day of the Games itself, were ‘bargaining skilfully with a seller’. Not just that, they also played a ‘crucial role in attracting other Games participants’ to the market .

True ambassadors, on and off the field.

Excess baggage

Not all Indian athletes will worry about returning with excess baggage.

Shooter Esha Singh shows off her four medals. “My back will bend if I wear all of them together,” she jokes. “It’s a weight I’ll willingly carry, though.” An emotion each of India’s 107 medallists will share.

P.S.: A big shoutout to Carol and Jack. The two teenage volunteers who were walking hand-in-hand along the banks of the Qiantangjiang, spending the rare time off, when this fumbling, lost boomer ruined their date. The biology students walked a kilometre, booked a cab, sorted out the complex payment issue and helped me reach the Closing on time. To them and the hundreds of other volunteers who made our lives easy, Xiexie!

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