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Between the times we got bogged by the annoying formalities of buying a home, we glimpsed the colorful thriller stories from Athens. And today, the climax of ulitmate event of the human race came to a reverberating end. Way to go Greece. For what was bestowed upon her about a decade ago, Greece did one heck of a job. For this tiny meditteranian country of mere 15 million residents and per-capita income of less than $12,000 peranum, this was the expensive undertaking ever attempted by any country. Add to it the security woes across the globe, It takes more than money and population to pull off the safest olympiad of al times.

It was a moment of great satisfaction, quite apparent on his face, as the mayor of Athens handed over the Olympic Flag to mayor of Beijing, where we will be welcomed for yet another greatest olympics in 2008.

I was told that Beijing is preparing to take the Olympiads to its next level. Only 4 years later will we find what that means to rest of us. But dont under estimate Beijing and the small yellow people my friends, you got to have seen the 110m Mens Hurdles finals to truly believe what chinese are capable of. Of course, we knew the chinese were breeding gymnasts, table tennis players and divers, but it was revelation to know they were silently breeding sprinters as well when Liu Xiang run the sprint of his life to win the 110m hurdles. I cannot believe chinese beating american and europeon sprinters, God damn, they are still 5 feet tall just enough to jump and clear the hurdle.

Liu Xiang, is elated to see himself beating the line ahead of everyone else. His facial expression says something to the effect, “you suckers, believe this, we can do anything to beat the world!. Pity the favourite frenchmen next to him fell in the last hurdle struggling to comprehend a chinese guy beat him!

I also saw the finishing laps of the mens marathon. A 45Km Marathon in approimately 2hours is the jewel of the Olympics events and is a true test of man’s physical abilities. Here luckily I also saw perhaps the only black-mark moment of the Olympics when De Lima of brazil was, in the middle of the race around 20Km spot, was grabbed over and knocked down for no reason by a cracked protester. Poor lima was a good lead then but unfortunately becoz of this stupid incident was pushed back to only win the bronze. But he was so humble, a true mark of most Olmpians of course, when he said it was not a big deal as he is happy he won a medal. Believe me, it matters when you get a bronze when you could have got a Gold for a fault thats none of yours. But thats how great atheletes behave. He was a great guy finishing with all smiles instead of being sober or angry! Later I learnt the attacker was a defrocked priest who was notorious in attacking major events like this for no reason! he was not a terrorist though.

US, as before finished the medals tally at the top, with China running close behind. Looks like China is all set to break the host country medal count record in Beijing four years from now. My beloved nation, India finished…it is easy to say this way…7th from the last. Though we should be proud of that shooter for that face saving Silver, it is a moment of shame that we have had our worst Olympics that can only be forgotten soon.

And for us, next week is going to be a nightmare as the Republican Convention opens up in new york city, just across the river from where we live. With protesters already burning effigys, we could see the smoke coming over the city. Security is beefed up to an extent that we see armed boats with cops roaming around our water front every few minutes. Coming in and driving around here is going to be a mess. Just imagine those who will be going into the city and to the convention area around the Madison Square Garden, its an unwanted pain. While we are all proud of New york city, why dont we accept that it is a freakin small city for anything of this size. And its not a joke to host a convention of this size and with it a quarter million protesters, to prove that the city is ready for everything!…The biggest mess on the face of the earth will be when new york city wins the Olympics 2012 !

If a tiny, athletic, flambouyant and crowd-pulling Jackie Chan can become a local star in nook and corner of India, why not equally powerful and uniquely characteristic, incomparable superstar of Tamil cinema, Rajinikath be a star in Japan. I think whatever comes in goes back!

OSAKA RAJINI FANS Website!!!. I am just totally amazed and awestruck at the amount of activity going on in the website, makes me compare this to the love we have for Jackie Chan. That religious cult following for Jackie when any movie that just has a one scene still of Jackie Chan will run for 50 days. Imainge block busters like police story, Central Theater in Coimbatore will see reckless stampedes. As hard it is to justify chan’s impact in India, equally confusing is Rajini effect in Japan. I guess reiterates the fact that opposite ends attract. More unbelieveable is that the website home page leads to the latest and hot news! “Chennai Tour 2004“...Japanes fans of Rajini touring his house, his hotel and marriage hall !. Hard to believe since we are on this side of the spectrum, just imagine how excited we would be take snap infront of Jackie Chans house in Hong Kong, if we happen to be there.

We see such small head blocks of US sports and rock stars all the time infront of the check-out counterrs in every stores here. I am excited to see Rajini is those flavours.

As I read this Tamil blog posted by our fellow Tamizh friends visiting Japan, I see some japanese are so manical about Rajini that they have learnt to speak Tamizh better than English!

This tamil text from their website speaks volumes of their naive interests in Thamizh, even though there are some obvious issues with language constructs. But this is Thamizh as versed by a Japanese, pretty good for that isnt it?

Nah Nah, I bet even if 100 more Jackie Chans come and go, not a single soul in India will pick up Chinese! Dont tell me you followed those dialogues on those kungfu movies. All we cared are those stunt sounds and strange noises that gave new meaning to Mimicry!

Alas, India won the first medal today with a silver in shooting. 100 Billion faces can now shed a tint of smile. As America stabilized its medal tally to move up to the top spot, NBC media empire trumpets the American version of the Olympics on every media channel available to people living in this part of the continent. NBC, one of the top media conglomerates has bought virtually rights to all forms of Olympics telecast in the US. The unfortunate consequence of this to people like us, non-americans living here, is to just watch the sports as NBC telecasts it. That means we see only american athletes performances. Unless India qualifies for any quarter or semi or becomes unlikely lucky enough for a final, we wouldnt have the pleasure of watching Indians play. With India losing its first game in Hockey, the hopes are only shattering more. I just saw a brief match of flyweight boxing where Kumar lost comfortably(!) to a french guy. On the other end, China leads the Gold tally. There is so much to learn from China, what best do we need than being a largest neighbour? Can we just tear down all barriers and aim for more collabaration from china for next olympics than just free passes to walk over to beijing acorss the Himalayas?.

Neverthless I am happy to see Olympics on HD (high definition) TV via NBC HD. That saves me from Bob Costas who covers most of the NBC Olympics coverage for the regular NBC channel. During the opening ceremony parade, as some of the low-profile countries with one or two (or less than 10) atheletes participating passed by, it was so pathetic how Bob costas specifically mentioned that ‘This is Djibouti, They have never won a medal in Olympics!’, ‘This is Kyrgystan first time in Olympics”…and then a few seconds later completed the sentence by saying ‘They have never won a medal in Olympics!’. Isnt it, rude? He probably thought he was giving statistical info about every country, but it is not an encouraging note at all. Its no big deal that US has won so many medals, with 450 athelete barging in every olympics, it would be shame otherwise! On HD, it was a treat to watch with crystal clear telecast and much less talking commentry and more than anything else, very few commercials!

On a happy note, it was so good to see a standing ovation from the crowd for Iraq on the opening ceremony I was really feeling good that they were able to participate inspite of all the turmoils going back home. Its hard to imagine for us, living in this wonderful peace to understand their feelings about war/death. As a bonus encouragement, Iraq won their qualifying football game even before the opening ceremony, so they were all in Cloud 9 walking up proud. In all, it was truly THE BEST opening ceremony of all olympics. For so much criticisms pouring from across the globe going into the Olympics, they did a fantastic job. It was truly breathtaking.