The greatest show on earth!

Last friday, Golls and i finished our work - whatever there was that we had to do - by 5.30 pm, and just like a majority of the world's urban population, settled into our comfy couches, with drinks and munchies, in front of the TV, waiting with bated breath for the Opening ceremony of the Olympics 2008 to begin.

Golls is a regular TV and sports buff, so this was not out of character for him. I on the other hand, usually don't watch TV. As for sports, I enjoy watching some sports but in moderation and not like a maniac, and as far as the Olympics go, i have previously only managed to follow the progress - opening and closing ceremonies included, through the evening news or highlights. So this time it was different for me. One, Golls' enthusiam was infectious and i found myself actually looking forward to following whole the Olympic drama live. Two, i have for the first time, real free time - so why would i pass up the chance to watch the ceremony (and later the contests) that promised to be grand to say the least.

The point of this post however, is to just document what happened on friday as the opening ceremony unfolded.

What happened, was pure magic.

There is just no other word that i have, to describe how we felt about the spectacle. One expected China - keeping in line with their cultural richness, their pride in all things Chinese, and their unrepressible and deliberate rise in the global economic matters - to stage an exoctic and beautiful show. Also becuase China and the city of Beijing made no secret of the fact that they spent a good part of the last half decade primping and pruning, leaving no stone unturned to look and feel as rich, as posh, as cultured, advanced, modern and formidably sophisticated as any other from anywhere on the globe. One read, heard of or saw pictures of Chinese soldiers at their parade practices with needle-attached-collars in order to get their posture right, about their proposal to Steven Speilberg for art-direccting the opening ceremony (and the subsequent fallout), about their English-lessons-on-TV, about the dog-meat-ban in order to respect the sensibilities of a large part of the world's countries, and assorted other reports about the relentless Chinese efforts to get their Olympics credentials right.

Plus, at least for people like me - the awe generated by their impossibly graceful, deceptively serene, gravity-defying martial arts heroes in movies like 'Hero' and 'Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon', also contributed to the expectations being very high.

Yes, expectations - mine, and everyone else's - very real high. And yet, what we saw, blew our minds!

This was by far - the most, most awesome show that i have ever seen. And i'm talking about seeing on television, which i am sure is not a quarter as good as watching the real thing in person. But even so, it looked marvellous. Ethereal. Humanly impossible. Such faultless precision and syncrony, at such a humongous scale - is really to me a task fitting of gods, not humans.

It really is not possible to describe in words how brilliant, brilliant the show was. So i let the pictures speak. I was too busy gaping - popcorn-holding-hand mid-air - to take pictures. So these are not mine... but from a brilliant news-website i found. Find it here, especially since they have large and beautiful pictures.

If you missed the show, please do yourself a favor, and look it up on YouTube or whatever - but do watch it. Olympic ceremonies are usually spectacular, but this one will stand out as being head and shoulders above any that have been ever attempted. This one, is going to be a real tough act to follow for any one - for a long, long time to come. Do watch it.

Here is my list of personal favorites:

1. The first/ opening drill with the 2000+ drummers, especially when their drums light up. More like CGI than human effort.

2. The lighting of the olympic couldron by the 1st ever Chinese gold medalist Li Ning. Very dramatic, very clever.

3. The huge inflated-and-lit globe with images flashing on its surface and athletes wearing cat-suits and elastic harnesses floating round and round it in concentric circles.

I only wonder what the morning after was like in Beijing, a city that has anyway been struggling with unhealthyly high pollution levels, what with several rounds of fireworks worth several million dollars lighting up the city during the 4 hour show.

But hey, you know what is my one takeout from the whole experience. I'm convinced, more than ever now, that those Chinese guys really could fly.