Driving Naari Programme launched in Chandigarh
Gold Coast, April 16
Commonwealth Games 2018 ended on Sunday night. A sense of emptiness accompanies the end of such events; in the case of Gold Coast CWG 2018, the emptiness was deepened by the actual emptiness of this city, whose residents had fled after being told that with CWG, chaos and traffic snarls would come.
The sports venues were becoming desolate, one by one, over the past few days as various events concluded; the venues were being dismantled, temporary seating being removed or shifted, barricades and barriers fork-lifted towards storage.
Few thrills
The closing ceremony was sufficiently impressive in wattage and decibels and colours, but it was not exactly thrilling. The Brits had sent down Prince Edward to officially close CWG, and he did perform this complicated task with aplomb.
The theme of the Closing Ceremony centred on the significance of earth, nature and its creatures — animals and plants. The ceremony had song and dance, and a traditional dance of the original Australians was performed with the usual gusto. An Australian Idol winner revved up the audience; Usain Bolt made an appearance, shook his long legs a bit and sent his fans into a state of frenzy. Another Australian Idol man, Anthony Cosmo Callea, worked up the crowd a bit more.
The Aboriginal people turned up to protest, too, but their attempts to disrupt the ceremony were thwarted; they had stood up in front of a large screen, even as a promotional advertisement for the 2022 Birmingham CWG was being shown. They were swiftly removed.
The ceremony was showy and bright, but lacked excitement and thrills — perhaps this perception was caused due to cultural alienation? One interesting point: In Australia’s showpiece events, Aboriginal people and culture are over-represented; in positions of power or authority, these people are under-represented. Also, it seems that this country and its people are trying too, too hard to emphasise that the ‘coloureds’ of the country are integrated and important. Seems a bit unconvincing.
Beach party
Australian culture lies on the beach, too, so we headed to Surfers Paradise, the central party place of this party town. The streets were mostly empty, as were the restaurants, by 10pm. Australians finish their dinner early, and the eateries have generally been empty most of the time, anyway.
A CWG party was on, called Festival 2018; it played pop and rock songs from earlier eras — the songs of the 1980s seemed to work the audience the most.
The most heavily dressed people at the beach party were serious-looking Chinese and Indians, some staring at their phones, some with their laptops open. European-descent people were in party clothing, dancing and singing along. The central market close by was sparsely populated, and slightly drunk members of the Scottish rugby team sang throaty rugby songs and danced and clowned around. Among those who presented themselves at the beach festivities were two lightweight boxers from India.
Right at midnight, the music stopped playing, the people trooped off, talking and laughing, the fun was over, emptiness reigned. CWG were organisationally successful, and the fans were very sporting. Pity about the emptiness.
