THE BEST AND REST OF DELHI

Sports editor Kelly Exelby sums up the experience after a fortnight of non-stop action at the Commonwealth Games.
AT LAST, THE END.
As the curtain comes down on possibly the most trouble-plagued Commonwealth Games in its 80-year history, was this really the "Shame Games" as many dubbed it during its comedic lead-up?
Or, as ridiculed (and probably jobless) Games head Suresh Kalmadi calmly opined, would it be like a giant Indian wedding - seemingly chaotic in many regards but coming together smoothly in the end?
Probably a mixture of both, although way more likeable than loathsome for this writer, who was captivated by the wall-to-wall sporting action on offer, even if some of it was of dubious quality and the organisation over-officious and less than smooth.
Overbearing security, traffic snarls, early morning starts, tight deadlines, late nights, rushing to get to venues, hour-long waits to get out, the heat and dust. It's an exhausting but exhilarating combination.
It's not necessarily the heat here that wears you down, but the suffocating stream of security checks and re-checks everywhere, chaotic traffic and, for me at least, the poverty.
As India basks in its best-ever haul of medals at a Commonwealth Games, news emerges that the nation's global hunger ranking - the number of children under 5 who are underweight, malnourished or who wind up dead - puts it in the 'alarming' category, with only Bangladesh ranked worse in Asia.
Yet it barely rated a mention in the Indian media. Apparently hunger, particularly at a time such as this, is inconvenient.
You can only stop and ponder, as children dressed in little more than rags sit in the dirt just metres from our hotel gates and street urchins fossick through bins for food, how much of a difference the estimated $8-10 billion that has been spent on the Games could have made.
We've struck the same set of sisters at the same set of traffic lights several times, one doing a well-practised amateur gymnastics routine on the dusty verge while the other stands at the window of the taxi, pleading for money.
Apparently 50,000 beggars and homeless, most hailing from the north, were herded up and forced to leave the city in the weeks before foreign media and athletes descended. Half that many again were forcibly removed from slums to make way for new stadiums and roads. No questions, no offer of compensation, just gone.
India's not alone; Beijing, of course, did the same leading up to the 2008 Olympics, demolishing entire housing blocks and forcing residents to move.
Delhi's hosting of the Commonwealth Games was supposed to bring the country to the attention of the world, not dissimilar to Beijing. It has. Just not how India had hoped.
The Games were a proving ground towards securing the first Olympics for the sub-continent. Despite public platitudes from International Olympic Committee Jacques Rogge it's almost impossible to imagine India, let alone Delhi, ever has a shot at getting an Olympics Games to this neck of the woods.
If the shambolic pre-Games preparations didn't seal the deal, then ongoing security concerns, poor attendance at most venues, the breakdown of ticketing and a myriad of smaller issues has seen to it.
Small crowds have been one of the oddest aspects of the Games. Who'd think, in a city of 14 million, it'd be hard to attract an audience of little more than 7000 - less than 50 per cent of capacity - to the women's hockey gold medal match between Australia and New Zealand. India is, after all, the home of hockey, even if their team doesn't win much any more.
Crowds turned out to watch the Indian men's team, and the boxing venue was packed for the last couple of days of finals. But the promised sell-out of rugby sevens at Delhi University? No way, with the 10,000-seat stadium probably two-thirds full.
Delhi residents have stayed away due to security fears and traffic woes around major venues. That was compounded by the expected financial boon created by an extra 100,000 foreign tourists failing to materialise, with a best-guess estimate putting the actual figure at 8000.
Budget hotels, bed and breakfast facilities and guesthouses, many which had gone extensive renovations in anticipation of being run off their feet, have been empty.
There's at least one group who are smiling though - Delhi's taxi drivers and the kamikaze tuk-tuk (automated rickshaw) operators who whiz in and out of the traffic. With media fed-up with the continual long waits at venues for Games-operated buses, alternative forms of getting around have gotten a hammering.
And haven't the drivers been loving it, jacking up their fares. Meters, supposedly compulsory, have been strategically covered up. It's fixed rate travelling all the way, with journeys usually costing 30 or 40 rupee ($1) suddenly 150-200 rupee. But it's fast, it's efficient and it sure beats sitting on the side of the road for a bus.
And so to the New Zealand team's performance. With the 36 medal haul, New Zealand's effort has topped that of Melbourne.
Best venue? Delhi University. It's a hike to get out there compared to the central-city proximity of some of the other stadiums, but with its tree-lined boulevards and manicured lawn verges it was like a little taste of home. Close second: hockey's Major Dhyan Chand Stadium, even if it was near-empty most of the time.
Star struck: Thwarted fairly early in the piece to see Usain Bolt light up the track (he didn't come), I have spied Lawrence Dallaglio, Lord Coe, Prince Charles and his missus, Sir Viv Richards, some English bird who's a halfway famous actress and New Zealand's own Steve "Tewy" Tew. No sign yet of Paul Henry though.
Most memorable performance by a New Zealander? I wasn't at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium to watch Val Adams' stroll to gold, but the sevens team's come-from-behind win, middle distance runner Nikki Hamblin's double silver in the 1500m-800m, Brent Newdick's coming of age as a decathlete, Hayden Roulston's gutsy, gusty effort in the 168km road race, the netballers and both hockey teams medalling for the first time ever at the same Games were my personal highlights.
Special mention too to shooters Mike Collings and John Snowden. Four long, hot days in the sun compounded by malfunctioning scoring technology, protests and counter-protests and they finally got to savour fullbore gold. With the venue halfway to Kashmir very few journalists bothered to make the trip out to the range. More's the pity.
Flightless birds: Boxing, wrestling, archery and bowls. Forget diving, gymnastics, badminton, synchronised swimming, tennis - no one expected them to perform anyway.
But the bowlers (one silver), wrestlers (needed the lucky loser parachute to get two grapplers beyond the first round), boxing (expected to medal but lacked a knockout blow) and the archers (froze when it mattered) were all decidedly average.
Best teams to deal with? Men's and women's hockey, without a doubt. Educated, articulate, honest with their answers, accessible... and both medallists. A treat. The track and field athletes, despite being burdened with post-race warm-downs and the drudgery of drug testing, always fronted.
Worst? The swimmers. Two words spring to mind: seige mentality, although when all's said and done, six medals out of a 12-strong team was a decent effort.
Anyway, that's it, over and out from me. But I'll be dusting off the kilt when I get home. See you in Glasgow in four years.