No teams please , we are Indian.

Okay , so the Olympics are over . What's the big deal ? The big deal is India ending them with rank 50 out of 55 countries and with three medals. Right ? No !

The big deal is that we are still an individual nation . We win individual medals . This country of a billion and half can't work together . We are a nation of individuals and will stay that way . As spectators , we get collective consciousness raised to remarkable levels . As participants , we want our victory for ourselves . Vijendra Singh , Abhinav Bindra and Sushil Kumar won their medals on the basis of their individual skill and strength without the system and without anyone hogging their moment under the sun . That's want we want as a country . Like crabs in the well known story we can't co-create , we can't co-celebrate . Every achievement is and has to be individual . Vishwanathan Anand , Anju Bobby George , Sania , Leander , Geet Sethi , Fereira , Padukone and zillions of others . Athletics , archery , wrestling , badminton , golf , snooker , chess anything will do , except Soccer , basketball , relays . No teams please , we are Indian .

That brings me to Cricket . Even cricket is such a game that I hated from the bottom of my heart till IPL came along but that's another story .

I hated cricket because of its soap opera system - individual players turning up at regular intervals , the length of the engagement needed ( five days for one format of the game ! ) , the one-man show culture , the inability to create a result in many games , the static-ness of the game ( you move muscles very little for half of the game ) , the non-contactedness of the sport ( soccer is contact sport at its best ) and the match fixing rackets ( at some point I wasn't sure whether to believe what I saw ) . It remains a very individual game , with glory for a few . Soccer is sheer tenacity , teamwork and leadership on display . A game that consumes less time than a hindi movie yet gives you absolute pleasure . No teamwork , no victory .( Just won a soccer cup last weekend - love the game )

Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupati can't get themselves to play together for even a tournament . Guess the Olympic Association should focus on creating champions for individual sport and forget about hockey and the rest .

Ever heard of a co-authored Indian book ? Keep looking . Ek Myaan , Do Talwar ? No way .

We are Indian . No teams please .

A new emotion

Barack Obama is an emotion . A new kind of emotion .

When I bought his book 'the audacity of hope' last year , he had just stepped into the race to be the next president of America . An amazing race this time for sure - the first woman , a sixty year old war veteran from a war Americans want to forget - Vietnam and an african american with a middle name 'Hussain ' and a surname that rhymes with their biggest enemy . Obama has just about repaid his education loan for Harvard Law school studies while media discovered his ancestral home in Africa and a broke half-brother in London .

He is the American Dream and as he said earlier , no black son or daughter will now be able to complain to their ma and pa of missed opportunities, discrimination and unfair competition .Following the election has been a great pleasure - his speeches , his ability to turn crowds on , inspire an new generation , mobilize enormous amount of monies for his campaigns and even to visit Iraq and Germany to build his foreign policy credentials are surely stuff of folklore . Black Boxer Cassius Clay gave up after winning the Olympic Boxing gold , throwing the medal into the Hudson river and becoming Mohammed Ali . Will Smith has managed to reach the pinnacle of the entertainment business with his efforts as a musician ( winning grammy's ) , TV sitcom actor and movie star . But Barack Obama is not on the fringes of society . He is the new society . As President Of America , he presides on a new world order - a post American world order .

Finally , years and years of slavery will be remembered and maybe banished from memory forever . And Martin Luther King will turn in his grave with a smile . Not since Alex Haley's roots has there been a tale of such a lot of toil , perseverence and revere . Remarkable achievement against Unsurmountable odds .

From hereon , whether he wins or loses , Obama will be a new emotion .

For now let's call it 'audacious hope '!