“We have this great Indian culture of doing everything at the last minute. Whether it is marriage or anything else, but we do end up doing it well,” Indian Union Minister S Jaipal Reddy, who heads the Group of Ministers overseeing the preparations of the Commonwealth Games to be held in New Delhi reassured anxious media people last week.

Flanked by the implacable Chief Minister of Delhi, Sheila Dikshit and Organising Committee chairman Suresh Kalmadi; Reddy confirmed that these would be the best Commonwealth Games ever. The Games are to be held between 3^rd October to 14^th October, 2010 and will be the largest multi-sport event conducted to date in New Delhi and India generally, which has previously hosted the Asian Games in 1951 and 1982.

Dikshit fussed at the media like a cranky aunt. “Please do not discourage us. Work is going on as per schedule. I, my cabinet colleagues, Delhi and District Cricket Association, New Delhi Municipal Corporation and other departments; everyone is constantly monitoring things,” she reiterated.

Correlating the games to an Indian wedding

Unlike weddings in the West where bets are often cynically made on how long the marriage will last, in India the betting is on whether the wedding will take place at all. In the preparation stages, horoscopes are carefully compared, families put under investigation for the slightest whiff of gossip or scandal.

A lot of money is spent on wooing the family and getting together the bride’s dowry because people are more interested in what comes with the bride than the bride herself.

Cars, motorbikes, Rolex watches and gold jewellery – these items are fiercely negotiated right up until the very last minute. At any moment there could be a runaway bride or a reluctant groom, an evil uncle or a greedy mother in law to spoil the match.

As in the case of the Games, favoured family members have had their companies allied with big spending committees. The marriage might be made in heaven but the alliances are worked out well before the big day dawns.

Leave the best to the last

Things like the food, venue and guests to be invited and sometimes even the choice of bride are pretty much left till the last minute. In the great Indian culture of arranged marriages, what is done well is the last minute stuff.

From the seeming chaos of pre-creation, great teams of workers will descend with curtains of marigold flowers, quirky light fixtures and great swathes of tent fabric to create the required illusion of romance and joy.

All the things that hold the entire ceremony together until at least the visitors leave, is kept to be finalised at the last moment. It’s the kind of brilliant stage management, flying by the seat of your pants style that the Indians do so well in Bollywood style.

Wedding cost overruns are also a great Indian tradition. Currently the budget blow out for the Delhi Commonwealth Games is said to be at least Rs 375 crore, seventeen times the original slated cost. “Because several things like the expenditure on special effects, props, make-up and costumes had not been factored in,” said the Minister of Sport Suresh Kalmadi.

This is despite the accusations flying fat and furious about how lot of money has been siphoned off by various people associated to the CWG organization committee, through companies where they have some interest.

Everything’s going to be alright

Then there is the great Indian tradition of pretending ‘Everything is Perfectly Alright’ when it’s all turned to curdled custard. This is known as the ‘No Problem’ tradition, which is something ingrained in most Indians.

While water dripped from the waterlogged ceiling at the Jawaharlal Nehru stadium during the inauguration ceremony last week in Delhi, Reddy explained that what was being mistaken for leaks were actually part of a water collection system!

This was the cue for the ex-minister of sports, Mani Shankar Aiyar, to announce his candidacy for the evil uncle when he called a press conference to announce that he was very pleased that the monsoon was ruining the Commonwealth Games.

“I am delighted in a way because rains are causing difficulties for the Commonwealth Games. Basically, I will be very unhappy, if the Games are successful because then they will start bringing Asian Games, Olympic Games and all these,” he said, claiming the games would bring evil to the country.

Managing embarrassing relations and relationships

This brings us to another great Indian tradition of dealing with potentially embarrassing relations. This is known in New Delhi as the Beggar Repatriation Program, a rounding up of an estimated 1,20,000 beggars to their ‘parent states’ or otherwise removing them from the streets where they may be seen by Commonwealth Games visitors. Surprisingly, this is happening alongside escort agencies importing prostitutes to cope with the expected increase in tourism the Games are supposed to bring.

In Connaught Place, New Delhi’s city centre, there is no room for beggars with the beautification project swinging wildly in the direction of mutilation. Live power tools lie on the pavement, building materials fall from building sites and the monsoon has turned the streets to mud. A monsoon downpour and the unannounced failure of the Metro system choked the city for hours.

At the Games event centres, the rains have flooded stadiums, collapsing the ceiling at the swimming stadium, curling up floors in the other stadium where wrestling matches are to be held. During a test event, one swimmer slipped on an open drain at the newly opened swimming stadium and cut her ankle.

Living up to a charade

There is another great Indian tradition of totally confusing an issue to such an extreme and thereby eliminating all other options until the very last moment so that there is no choice but to proceed with what has now been revealed to be a charade. This is the great Indian tradition of corruption, of having you by the balls. You are given Buckley’s chance of success, but must move forward regardless.

“Do you want me to go to jail?” spluttered Dikshit whose government is charged with providing the infrastructure for the Games, when questioned about the claim that venues had been signed off in haste without proper attention to safety.

“Corruption issues will be dealt with after the Games,” said the Indian Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh. The urgency is to hold the Games. And to pull it off without incident, which according to Bhavna Vij-Aurora, Editor-in-Chief of India Today, is highly unlikely.

Referring to her story ‘The Shame Games’ she said, “In typical desi (local) style, everything will be ready at the last minute but all those involved in the Games do not rule out a mishap of some kind during the fortnight.”

“It’s only a fortnight,” says Sheila Dikshit as if she were redecorating a suburban house instead of a city of 13 million people. “Then we will have to find a way to maintain the sporting legacy that the Games will leave behind.”

Perhaps event centres may in future be rented out as Wedding Reception Venues since multi-million dollar white elephants don’t seem to be high on the average Delhiites wish list.

Meanwhile athletes are voting with their feet and remembering other commitments or telling their families and supporters to stay at home, bravely venturing where even the Queen has dared not to go.

But this is an Indian Wedding, where the focus is on the groom and so the final word on whether this Big Fat Indian Wedding will take place should go to the Sports Minister, Suresh Kalmadi, who is something like the father of the bride in this case, trying to secure enough gold to make the wedding happen while all the time maintaining an outwardly confident position, he is going cap in hand even at this late hour desperately seeking sponsorship for the trillion dollar games.

And he is increasingly under pressure to explain corruption charges now coming thick and fast. “We will keep preparing until the last minute, then the baaraat (groom’s procession) arrives and everything passes off wonderfully,” he concludes optimistically. An optimism that few Indian share anymore.

- Dianne Sharma-Winter is a regular contributor at NewsCollective. Registered publishers can access and buy her articles at www.newscollective.com