My CWG Report

What started of as one of the most unwelcome events in our ADPR class turned out to be one of the most fondly memorable events in most of our lives. The internship at the 19^th Commonwealth Games was filled not only with moments of excitement and leisure, but also with endless hours of hard work and dedication.

Like indisposed sheep being sent to the slaughterhouse that was CWG, we entered Pragati Maidan on the 8^th of September to discover at which venue each one of us would be posted. Some were over-the-moon about their venues, and some not so much. What followed was a week of presentations and briefs about accreditations, security, handling media, Games News Service, and the venues among others. While repeated questions about smoking areas at venues and pestering athletes to talk to the media set the tone for how amateurish some of the senior supervisors might turn out to be, most of us were also repulsed by the exorbitant prices of food at the sole eatery at Pragati Maidan.

On the 16^th of September we were finally deployed to our venues, mine being at Badminton in Siri Fort. As excited about the sport as about the athletes, I went with the purest of intentions to make full use of this opportunity. Neeza Anuranjani was my confidant and confederate for the next two weeks as we struggled to work and get work done at Siri Fort Complex. The atmosphere was tense with disagreement and frustration about the policies of most of the senior supervisors who seemed desperately insistent in making us sit without any work or purpose and discuss clothing, vegetables and philosophy. Some of the supervisors in sudden fits of wanting to work would send us to various work areas and ask us to sit there and blabber instead of the sub-zero temperatures of the media lounge. There was some respite with the Squash team that discussed news articles and made presentations every day and despite our repeated attempts at encouraging some sport related conversation occasionally, we were mostly just asked to sit around and do nothing. Yet Neeza and I, like crusaders continued to struggle to get work done in the tribune area which was my allocated work area. Talking to contractors from various companies who were working there, we realized that even for things like getting internet cabling installed in the tribune galleries, five different contractors were hired. It dawned upon us how this was a great way to make money while diffusing the responsibility of getting the work done. Therefore while installing cables through piping and setting up ports would be a couple of days’ work, this ended up taking almost ten days.

I furiously took down notes during our meetings with the competition manager and even day-to-day problems in the tribune galleries while some seemed to mock my dedication. Interesting as it was to try to report these problems and figure out solutions, it was equally frustrating to know that in every meeting of the senior officials for which I handed over my daily report, the dismal pace at which work was done was something I would just have to accept sooner or later. Trouble also came from other sides and my accreditation (much to my annoyance and others’ too pronounced accredation by several despite repeated attempts at correction) was incorrectly printed as that for MPC (Pragati Maidan) and not Siri Fort. Daily phone calls and mails to Ms. Shikha Ghai and Ms. Shelly went in vain as they kept procrastinating. Once we were told not to bring any food or water as the lockdown would begin and it turned out that food for ten people was given to our team of twenty. Since then most people got smarter and got their own food. When the catering actually began it was one of the most horrific experiences – having to eat rotten food. It was immediately disposed and we had to scavenge for other alternatives again.

Yet we persevered. I daily highlighted issues like delay in installation of power points in the tribune galleries, incomplete railings and steps leading to the mixed zone, hazardous height of the wooden paneling, excessive width of the tribune tables and cluttering of wires among others. Some were resolved by speaking to the contractors themselves while others took longer as the chain of command had to be followed. On the 29^th of September finally, just a stone’s throw away from the Games I being extremely anxious about the power points pestered one of the supervisors into taking immediate action. She suggested that we not follow the chain of command as the venue manager had said the problem was not being resolved through this method. As we tried to disregard rules we were sent back reprehensibly and asked to follow procedures. We informed our managers about their misplaced advice immediately.

On the 30^th of September, despite repeated attempts to get my accreditation corrected I was told like an orphan kicked out from the venue I was slowly getting attached to, that I could no longer come to Siri Fort as my accreditation would not give me entry once the card readers were functional. I spent my last day at Siri Fort regretting how I would not miss the opportunity to see the big players but rather miss the electric atmosphere of the matches and dealing with hyperactive media personnel in order to resolve their problems. Strangely, resolving problems is exhilarating.

So I reported at 11 am on the 1^st of September with Sugandh Swani to Ms. Shelly from HR who assigned me to the Photo Department. Here I met the very jovial and heart-warming photo team led by Mr. Saxena and Mr. Sinha. I was taken to the Photo Help Desk in the Main Lobby at MPC and here I built my home for the next sixteen days. It was a different world at MPC. Here we were encouraged to eat food on time and resolve problems immediately. The volunteers and interns and even the managers were young with energy and enthusiasm and not at all boastful of their non-existent accomplishments like the people at Siri Fort. Photographers kept coming to my help desk and I kept resolving their problems and it was truly exhilarating. The work was not difficult and my responsibilities were few, yet I would always go the extra mile to find out information that might be available at other help-desks so that I would not have to send an enquirer from one desk to another and could answer the query in my own capacity as well.

At the Photo Help Desk there were three main tasks to be done: issuing bibs and lockers to photojournalists, providing information about other photo services at MPC, and providing miscellaneous information to any other enquirers. Queries about directions to the washroom and convenience store and even about which Bollywood movies to watch were also pleasantly entertained. While there quite a few technical glitches like the photo bibs not arriving until the day of the Opening Ceremony and a restrictive locker policy not allowing storage overnight; the more interesting problems had a more human dimension. Also, these conflicts that I resolved did not particularly pertain to photographers but were just as rewarding to resolve. One particular case was with an Australian journalist who had brought back an Indian journalist’s bag from Opening Ceremony while carrying all his other heavy equipment as well. It was past 11 and he could not issue a locker for the night and he had no transport back to his hotel as the last bus had left at 10:50pm. With the help of a supervisor at MPC, I was able to get him a locker to keep his equipment and offer him our metro tickets so he could catch the last metro at 12 am.

Another case pertained to a journalist from Nauru, a wonderful lady who was the only journalist from her country and had missed her first event as she could not carry her camera inside since her accreditation was not of a photojournalist. Terribly upset by being sent from one desk to another she approached me and asked if anything could be done. Initially I informed her from my prior knowledge that the accreditation department had been having a lot of issues and so it was unlikely that her accreditation could be fixed. However I decided to call up one of the members in the team and ask if her issue could be resolved. When I received an encouraging response I happily approached the lady once again and informed her of the same. The expression on her face was one that deeply moved me and was one of the most gratifying moments of my life.

Finally, the most memorable moment was when I helped out one of the journalists from AAP who had run out of validity on the MTNL phone he had been issued. When I suggested that he get a new Aircel connection from the store within MPC itself he told me how his friend earlier in the day had lost several thousands of rupees as her phone connection had been terminated due to an account verification hitch. He was thus very adamant about not purchasing an Aircel connection, but he also knew of no place from where he could get an MTNL validity recharge. I did my own bit of research and found out that there was no facility to recharge online and the closest outlet was in ITPO. I immediately contacted a friend who worked there who was able to purchase a coupon and recharge the phone immediately. The AAP journalist was tremendously happy and said he was very grateful for me being one of the few people that really went out of the way to help him.

All these experiences taught me something very valuable: while many people cribbed about saving face for our country by praying that the Games would turn out well, for me, as an ordinary person, it was just about helping other people out. Journalists, I realized, live an extremely difficult life, traveling all day, lugging around heavy gear and barely getting paid enough. In these circumstances, if we could make their life a little easier by the small things we did, it was truly something valuable we did even though we weren’t working for advertising or PR agencies.