Two Types of People

There are, it has been said, two types of people: those who love India, and wimps. For the last two weeks, the wimps have had the upper hand. The 2010 Commonwealth Games were always going to court controversy, as will handing any expensive sporting event to a developing country. Delhi has not disappointed the wimps. Indeed, before the Games started many of our best athletes decided for security or health reasons that Delhi was not for them. The wimps must have loved the headlines too: cue endless photographs of dirty toilets in the athletes’ village, lots of mud, stories of the cobra found on the tennis court and the high diving board that was 10.7 metres and not 10 metres above the pool. Then the Games started, and we had the sprinter complaining about the starting block that moved on a squidgy running track (he only won silver or bronze, as if this was one of life’s biggest tragedies). And to top it all, the five-horned rhinoceros beetles. These two-inch long beasties were found eyeballing one of the swimmers just before the freestyle swimming relay (for men, not aquatic insects), and a man had to be summoned to fish the critters out before the show could go on.

  I can already here the wimps saying “I told you so!” And that’s without the rather insulting phrase “Delhi belly” being used by BBC TV presenters to describe the stomach complaint that has afflicted the English team (as if stomach complaints are confined to India and not your local takeaway). So I will admit it – it is safer not to go to India. It is safer not to cross the street, let alone drive to the airport. It is safer to shut yourself in your bedroom tomorrow and not go out. But it is infinitely less fun.

 Much the same point was made by our college Health and Safety Officer when we launched our student charity project to help tsunami-hit fishing villages in south India and decided the best way to drum up interest in the college was to send students out there. I remember our Health and Safety Officer’s response when I told him of the idea: “Mike, the best thing to do is to fly your students to India then tell them to take two week’s worth of pre-packed sandwiches and bottled water and not leave their hotel room. That way, they will return fit and healthy. Of course, they will not see India that way…” In the end, our risk assessment report ran to 110 pages. We used to joke that an unscheduled auto rickshaw race or a swim in the sea was a “page 111”, outside the listed and carefully evaluated problems we might encounter.

 India is a wonderful country with wonderful people. It assault the senses, it grabs you by the throat (and certainly by the nose) as soon as you leave the airport at Chennai or Mumbai or wherever. Those athletes who thought the risks were too great to go there have missed out on one of life’s greatest countries, and great experiences. India can change your life, and that opportunity has been lost to them. Wimps may be safe, but where is the fun in being safe? Or as Clement Freud famously said, you can give up smoking, drinking and eating fatty food – you don’t live longer, it just seems longer!

 What was it Jesus said? “Whoever would save his life will lose it.” Nothing that is worthwhile in life is without risk; loving somebody, applying for a job, going to college – all risky business. Much safer not to love and risk rejection, not to go to work and risk redundancy a few years later, safer not to go to college in case you fail, safer in short not to do anything. And much safer not to have faith. I guess what Jesus is saying is that the Christian gospel, like India, is not for wimps.

  As for our college, one week before we flew out to India the college organised a trip to SeaWorld in Hull. And a student fell and sprained their ankle. India was much safer.

r colleg