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Flame fire reaches capital

Rajpath is a fortified zone as the Indian leg of the Olympic torch relay hits town today under the spectre of pro-Tibet protests

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Rajpath is a fortified zone as the Indian leg of the Olympic torch relay hits town today under the spectre of pro-Tibet protests

NEW DELHI; Steel barriers and wire mesh line the riughly 2.5 km journey for the symbol of sporting excellence on the planet. Delhi’s Rajpath, from the President’s House to India Gate, is swathed with the bristle of gun-toting security agencies.

The threat of Tibetan protests, akin Paris, London and San Fransisco, has robbed the journey of the Olympic flame in India of the innocence of sport. Instead, it has been forced to become an affair with equal say of the Minsitry of Home Affairs.

Indian Olympic Association president Suresh Kalmadi could not reveal the exact time of the run to the assorted media from across the world on account of security concerns. He persistently evaded the issue with innocous replies.

It was possible to sympathise with the man. What is after all a celeberation of sport — civilisation’s purest form of evolved combat — has become an operation to be conducted with equal measures of stealth and blanketing khakhi. Commmander Jeev Nandi Singh, who was part of the gold-winning hockey teams of the ‘48 and ‘52 Games, could not help but remark, “It all used to be so open and accesible to everybody.”

The hulking bodyguards trailing 1996 Atlanta bronze winner Leander Paes and sprint queen PT Usha were a sad sign of the paranoia that surrounds security around the torch relay. The precise location of the torch once it arrives from Islamabad past midnight is being kept secret. The route has become such a traffic nightmare that it would have been impossible to not attract attention to it.

Five Chinese ‘torch attendants’ will be part of 65 Indian Olmpians who will run two-at-a-time with the torch. That makes it a distance of about 80 metres for each athlete. There was speculation on just why Sachin Tendulkar could not manage the distance till Kalmadi said, “I believe he is not well and he also has an IPL meeting to attend.”

The object of all this attention is a 72cm red aluminium cylinder that burns propane to throw up a flame of 25 to 30 centimetres that can withstand winds upto 65 kph and 50mm rain per hour.

As to just how much of a whirl will the Wednesday protests outside the Chinese embassy spill over to Rajpath is the big ask for Indian agencies threading the diplomatic needle between a vigilant China and the world’s largest Tibetan exile population.

There is more than the symbol of the Olympic movement unfolding in the Capital on Thursday. This will be as much a spectacle of India’s ability to keep its house in order. The world is watching.

Olympic Torch route
March 24: Lighting Ceremony at Olympia; March 24—29: Torch Relay in Greece; March 30: Greece Handover Ceremony; March 31: Beijing; April 2: Almaty; April 3: Istanbul; April 5: St. Petersburg; April 6: London; April 7: Paris; April 9: San Francisco; April 11: Buenos Aires; April 13: Dar es Salaam; April 14: Muscat; April 16: Islamabad; April 17: New Delhi; April 19: Bangkok; April 21: Kuala Lumpur; April 22: Jakarta; April 24: Canberra; April 26: Nagano; April 27: Seoul; April 28: Pyongyang; April 29: Ho Chi Minh City; May 2: Hong Kong; May 3: Macao; May 5 to August 6: Chinese cities
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