Fan support, strange culture and obese policemen

It's so great to hear Indians cheer. For the past few days, the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium could be compared to Jamaica's national treasury - empty, with only few spectators scattered inside the 60,000 capacity facility.

Indeed, the athletics competition and in fact, quite a few more, have been stained with minimal spectator support. There was even talk of a ticket scam and mismanagement.

If we were surprised to see about 20,000 inside the venue on Saturday, imagine our shock, a pleasant one, when we walked inside the stadium yesterday to see a massive 50,000 noisy Indian-packed crowd inside the venue.

After a week, it appears the Games have just started.

The design of the stadium and the position of the media tribunes make for a rather deafening experience when they find a reason to cheer, like when Vikas Gowda (men's discus) and Praj Malaikkal (women's long jump) both won silver medals in their events. Not to mention the music that follows, Indians certainly have rhythm, seems every woman here knows how to belly-dance. God bless India, what a wonderful country!

A lot of 'guts'

On a different note, I have been witnessing some rather strange things in this country. For instance, I walked into a cafeteria only to see something I've never seen anywhere else; a dog walking around as if he were waiting tables ... To my surprise, no one gave the dog a second look. In the same cafeteria, I walked up to the counter to order (before I saw the dog, of course) but there was no one to take my order.

The cashier was talking to a friend of his in the general seating area and upon seeing me, he came over and jumped on to, and then over the counter, shoes and all, the same counter on which he was supposed to serve me. I smiled and said "never mind, I'm fine".

Another strange thing I've seen; the shocking number of policemen teetering on the brink of obesity. There seems to be no particular physical requirement to become a policeman here or maybe it takes a lot of 'guts' to tackle crime in India. I laughed to myself when I tried to picture one of them running down a sidewalk vendor in downtown Kingston.

Just try to picture Asafa Powell's coach, Stephen Francis, in a police uniform. Wait! We already have that in Jamaica ... Bigga Ford!