Khushwant Toor writes from Toronto

THE 21st Winter Olympics games were inaugurated on February 12, 2010, amongst a spectacular show of technology and Canadian pride. The host Vancouver – the pictures city of Canada was full of life and joy and boastingly welcomed athletes from all over the world. About 2,500 athletes from a record 82 countries are participating in the games, targeting for medals in 86 events - including the newly added ski-cross competition.

For the inaugural ceremony, more than 60,000 people packed into the BC Place stadium for the evening extravaganza, the first Olympic opening ceremony ever held indoors. The massive stadium was covered with a special cloth roof held upright by positive air pressure maintained inside the stadium. Somewhere between $30 million and $40 million, roughly a tenth of Beijing’s budget was spent to put up the evening show in Vancouver.

Opening ceremony started with the gracious and decorated chiefs of Canada’s First Nations (chefs of four aboriginal tribes) welcoming the guests from around the world into their native land now called Canada. The marching of the athletes was accompanied by continuous aboriginal native dance in the arena. Technology, show was at its best. Breathtaking, fabulous, massive, choreographed, humongous scenes and shows were created in the arena with the help of around 100 projectors attached to the skyline of the stadium dome.

Special effects included a giant, sparkling polar bear rising from the stadium floor and hovering over some performers on a simulated ice flow. Later, Celtic fiddlers performed under a stadium-wide cascade of autumn leaves, and an acrobat on wires performed an aerial ballet. The cultural segment of ceremony featured many of Canada’s best-known musical stars - including Bryan Adams, Nelly Furtado, Sarah McLachlan and k.d. lang. It also highlighted performers and traditions from Canada’s aboriginal communities.

The ceremony started with heavy hearts as only hours before the ceremony a luger from the country of Georgia, Nodar Kumaritashvili, was killed in a horrific training-run crash at Whistler. He was believed to be skiing down the hill at a speed aver 140 Km/hr and unfortunately at his last turn got tossed out of the track and bumped his head in a nearby metal poll. The ceremonies were dedicated to Kumaritashvili, and a moment of silence was observed in his memory. The seven remaining members of the Georgian team, who decided to stay and compete, wore black armbands as they marched behind a black-trimmed flag. Most of the crowd rose to give respectful applause.

The climax called for the cauldron to be lit jointly by four Canadian sports heroes - all-time hockey hero Wayne Gretzky- addressed as the great one, skier Nancy Greene, basketball star Steve Nash and speedskater Catriona LeMay Doan. But the former speedskating medalist Catriona LeMay Doan was left to stand by awkwardly when one of the four pillars holding the Olympic cauldron failed to rise.
After the Olympic torch was lit inside the stadium a second, larger cauldron was lit by Gretzky in a plaza along the downtown waterfront - giving Vancouver a visible symbol for the rest of the games that the indoor stadium could not provide.

Canada has high hopes from its athletes and is hoping get an edge over the rest being the hosts. The overall favorites include Germany and the United States - which finished first and second four years ago. Pakistan, Cayman Islands, Columbia, Ghana, Montenegro, Peru and Serbia are participate for the first time in Winter Olympics.

As usual, amidst protests and joyful moments the Olympic flame reached the Vancouver stadium after a 106-day passing through more than 1,000 communities in every province and territory. On Friday, activists espousing a variety of causes prompted the relay to change course twice as it passed near Vancouver’s skid-row neighborhood, the Downtown Eastside. Later, several thousand protesters marched to the stadium, where hundreds of police were waiting for them. A standoff lasted more than two hours - with some sticks and water bottles thrown toward the officers.

For the next 17 days the Olympic flame will be lit in Vancouver and each day will be a do and die situation for the athletes competing in the games. May the best athletes win.

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From angry young man to apologist of thugs

Gurpreet Singh writes from Vancouver

A coolie at the dock vows not to pay anything to the goons, who collect protection money every week from the workers. The defiance is met with physical assault. But this guy is not scared. He rather locks himself in the warehouse along with the thugs and throws the keys at the gang leader roaring, ``you can put them in your pocket, I will get them myself’’. Within minutes the fight is over and the victorious hero emerges out of the warehouse defeating the gangsters all alone.

That’s a scene from Deewar, a famous Hindi film with Amitabh Bachan in the lead role. Back then everybody knew him as an angry young man who could handle dozens of goons alone and who stood against any injustice and villainy in the society. However, a recent scene from the real life in Mumbai presents a different version of Amitabh Bachan.

While the Hindu right wing group Shiv Sena has spearheaded a campaign against Bollywood star Shahrukh Khan for speaking favourably about the Pakistani cricket team, Amitabh Bachan has showered praises on the Shiv Sena Chief Bal Thackrey. Khan had suggested that the Pakistani team be allowed to play in Mumbai that came under attack from the Pakistani terrorists in November 2008. This had infuriated the Shiv Sena that claims to be the custodian of national interest and has decided not to let Pakistani team step on the Indian soil. Shiv Sena has asked the theatres not to run Khan’s forthcoming film. It’s a separate matter that the Shiv Sena followers were not seen anywhere when the security forces were battling with the terrorists on the night of the attack.

Deewar was not the only film that made him famous and that character alone did not earn him a reputation of being Big B. A film after film established Bachan as a superhero and when he got seriously injured during the shooting of Coolie, everyone prayed for his speedy recovery across India .
As a result of his big fan following, the Star Comics published Supremo, a comic series of a real life hero who duplicated Bachan during 1980s. In fact, Supremo was Bachan himself who disguised as saviour and escaped from the sets during crisis like Superman and Batman. These stories ended with reminders to Bachan that he was only a reel life hero whereas Supremo is a real hero. Bachan winked at these suggestions. However, the recent developments in Mumbai have proved how right those suggestions were. Instead of coming to the support of Khan, Bachan has not only maintained a studied silence on the issue but has praised Thackrey on his blog. He also wishes to arrange special screening of his new film, Ran at Thackrey’s home. Interestingly, he had even apologized to Shiv Sena after his wife Jaya Bahaduri had issued a statement in support of the north Indians, whose continued migration is also irking Shiv Sena that wants to keep Mumbai reserved for Maharashtrians. To be objective, what can be expected from Bachan in view of Shiv Sena’s criticism of Khan, when he could not stand up for his wife.

Only recently Bachan had also decided to promote Gujarat on the asking of its Chief Minister, Narendra Modi, whose government is accused of engineering anti Muslim pogrom in 2002. He did not find it necessary to question Modi for that violence. In 1984, when the Congress was blamed for engineering a similar pogrom against the Sikhs, Bachan joined the party and became a member of parliament without raising a voice against this butchery despite being born to a Sikh mother.

When his actor son wedded Aishwaya Rai, the former beauty queen and a film star herself the Bachans were engaged in all kind of blind rituals. These instances show how different is Big B in his real life. The angry young man we have seen fighting with the goons and the establishment in the films for all these years has always been in bed with them. I had a first glimpse of him during my recent visit to Kolkata. He had come to see the ailing Communist leader Jyoti Basu, who passed away on January 17 at the AMRI Hospital . A crowd of Big B fans had gathered outside the hospital and almost each one of them was equipped with cell phone cameras to get his picture. As soon as he stepped out of the exit door every one cheered. Some people tried to chase him without realizing that the real hero, Comrade Basu who had challenged the fascist forces like Shiv Sena was battling for life and the ``hero’’ in front of them was a cycloid body.

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Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh member wins Hindu temple election

Gurpreet Singh writes from Vancouver

ALMOST three months after the Guru Nanak Sikh Temple election was won by an orthodox Sikh youth slate, the Surrey Hindu Temple election has gone to a group led by a member of an ultranationalist Hindu group. On January 31, Parshotam Goel, a member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), was elected president of the temple governed by the Vedic Hindu Cultural Society of B.C., soundly defeating a slate led by Sunny Chohan. The RSS is a volunteer group that advocates vociferously for a Hindu India.

Goel’s election coincided with the martyrdom day of Mohandas Gandhi, the father of the Indian nation and an international peace icon. He was assassinated by Nathuram Godse, a Hindu extremist formerly associated with the RSS, on January 30, 1948. The RSS was banned for about a year after Gandhi’s murder.

In an interview with the Straight, Goel dismissed critics who have accused the RSS of being against minorities, including Muslims and Christians, and wanting to turn India into a theocratic Hindu state. “The RSS is not a terrorist group,” he said. “It does not operate secretly. It’s a true nationalist group that teaches us to be proud Hindus. How does that harm secularism?’’

Goel, who was also elected in 2005, is the only member of the winning slate with strong ties to the RSS. He acknowledged that he supported the RSS campaign for the construction of a Hindu temple in the ancient Indian city of Ayodhya, the reputed birthplace of Lord Ram, a beloved Hindu god. Hindu militants had pulled down the Babri mosque on a disputed site in 1992, triggering violence that continued on and off for years. Hindu leaders claimed that the mosque was built by former Muslim rulers who had destroyed an original Ram temple.

A fiery Hindu preacher, Sadhvi Rithambara, was blamed for inciting the mobs in Ayodhya with her anti-Muslim oratory. According to Goel, she has twice visited the Surrey Hindu Temple. “We had also invited former RSS leader K. S. Sudarshan in the past and wish to invite the current chief, [Mohan] Bhagwat,’’ he said.

Goel said he is focusing more on issues relating to “the community at large’’, emphasizing that he wants to educate youth about the real values of Hinduism and contribute to the betterment of Surrey Memorial Hospital. In 2007, he helped create the Hindu-Sikh Unity Campaign to bring Hindus and moderate Sikhs together to counter pro-Khalistan Sikh separatists in B.C.

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