Wednesday, August 13, 2008

"India's Goldfinger"

Today is my last day in India. I arrived back safely from Hyderabad last night and stayed with a friend for a night. This morning, we woke up and made omelets and watched the Olympics together. The papers have been raving about Abhinav Bindra, the first Indian to win an individual goal medal ever. Since cricket dominates the sports scene across the entire country - many people have never really considered India to be a sporting nation. Abhinav's win was huge for the entire country, it represents a step towards legitimizing India in world sports outside of cricket. He won his medal in the 10m air rifle - I watched the final round from my hotel room in Warangal. On the last shot of the round, he was tied with a shooter from Finland. One last shot to determine gold. Bindra shot a 10.8 - a really good score, while the shooter from Finland marked under 10, a big disappointment considering he was leading most of the way. All media has been going crazy and the endorsements have been flowing in for this Indian hero.

Since my flight is at 10:50pm tonight, I have the day to roam around one last time and finally do some shopping. I'm going to give my bargaining skills a test and see how much I can get with the last couple thousand of rupees I have left (you can't bring rupees outside of the country). Alvida!!

2 comments:

Edify said...

Good to see your crazy travel plans worked out (I assume)! How come you can't bring rupees out of India?

sandylsu said...

Hi David, this is Sandy. Wow, I did not know you were in India at all until I saw your pictures on Facebook! Thanks for sharing your insights online! Hope to hear more when you are back in NJ.