T 816 - Honored to be asked to carry the Olympic Torch in London at Southwark around 10:30 AM!! A proud moment for me and country!
                       - @SrBachchan tweets to his 3.4 million plus follows

A disclaimer first. Like a billion of us, Amitabh Bachchan is my favourite actor. As a teeneager, I have had his line-sketch gracing my wall, the smaller ones being Viv Richards, the Bee Gees, and Olivia Newton-John. My favourite recall as an interviewer was the time I got to speak to the man in Amar Singh’s house, not conversations with Lee Kuan Yew, MF Hussain or Andy Grove. I have even suffered “Lal Badshah” and “Suryavansham” without demanding a refund.

So, with no disrespect to the iconic Mr Bachchan, why did he sell us the idea that it’s such a big deal for him to be running a few metres with the Olympic Torch?

My carp is that an Ordinary Joe like me would’ve been thus honoured. But I’m unsure if Amitabh Bachchan was. And I’m certain my country wasn’t.

The overkill happened because basic research wasn’t done by our news channels. Not one of them left us in any doubt that Mr Bachchan running with the torch was a really big deal. Most gave this precedence over lives being lost in Assam.

Three quick counters:

1.   Did any channel fulfill the dharma of mentioning context? In the instant case, 8,000 other people have done exactly what Mr Bachchan has. Biographies of these “inspirational” torch bearers can be accessed on: http://www.london2012.com/torch-relay/torchbearers/ If you knew that - and here we obviously don’t mean any disrespect to 8,000 community leaders, physicians, trainers, and students – would you still buy the sales pitch that a similar action was a great honour for an Indian acting icon and our country? If the British really wanted to show solidarity to India,  one of our Olympic icons, may be Milkha Singh or PT Usha would have been game. But Milkha Singh or Usha don’t get you publicity, right!

2.    If we click on the methodical listing of torch bearers, as only the British can create, an internal search for “Bachchan” says there’s no such name to be found. The obvious implication is that Mr Bachchan was nowhere in the original list, but some very smart thinking by the British tourist establishment had him on at the eleventh hour. Mr Bachchan’s gushing tweet a few hours beforehand corroborates this.

Is it possible that security considerations played a part here and the organisers left Mr Bachchan’s cameo relatively unadvertised? We can’t buy that because a day before the actual run, the press machine of the BBC anchored by one Imelda Flattery (the match of @Imeldaflattery actions and her surname isn’t coincidental) tweeted his entry and Mr Bachchan dutifully retweeted her.

3.    The third, and most substantive question relates to who the folks in the 8,000 are. Sure, British legends like Daley Thompson, Lewis Hamilton, and Nathan Robertson ran with the torch. But so did one Kumar Goel from Freemont. As for who he is, his nominators state: “One of his responsibilities in 2011 was to lead a technology overhaul at work. The work was complex and required engagement and interaction with various groups around the world for a successful outcome. To ensure consistent and clear communication, I created a process that included many elements that were critical to the success of the implementation. Thanks to the cooperation and teamwork worldwide, our team was able to effectively complete its objective.”

Hmm…nice, but frankly in the class as Mr Bachchan? I wonder.

Then there’s Arun Kumar, described by his London nominator as, “…one of our shining stars in terms of his contribution to our local community. Arun was selected from an internal list of employees who are referred to as 'Instant Heros'. The background to both his Instant Hero and Olympic Torch nomination is that he frequently gives up his own time to help others - both internally and externally. He has an excellent attitude to helping in that he goes out of his way to help regularly and is caring in his approach to internal colleagues and external community members.”

Cheers Arun, I didn’t mean to compare you to Mr Bachchan.

Staying on with Indian-sounding surnames, beyond London’s rajas, the Mittals, Lakshmi and Aditya, we encounter on the microsite’s search engine, among many others, Rakesh Kumar, Satbir Kaur Singh Digwa, Jay Singh, Fauja Singh (aged 101, cheers sir!), Anshul Sharma, Mak Sharma, and Sureena Sharma.
             
Sureena’s bio clinches the hyperbole that Mr Bachchan, twittersphere and the Indian media fell for. Sureena is 19, her hometown is Middlesex, and as her nominator states this as her credentials: “It's such a prestigious moment that I'm struggling to find reasons as to why you should pick me. I guess I would like to believe that my ability to inspire confidence in those around me would make me a likely candidate... As a senior mentor during 6th form, it was very satisfying to help build the self-esteem of my junior peers to help them cope with matters such as bullying. Additionally, as Head of Drama at my Secondary School, I took the initiative to set up my own drama club for Year 7 and 8 to guide and improve their acting skills, particularly for those who were initially very shy. Organising a talent show to help raise money..”

Sureena, we respect the confidence you inspire, and your work against bullying, etc., but if Amitabh Bachchan is being packaged in the same lot, what can one say except to salute the British Toursim marketing machine! Stated bluntly, is it also a mix of our media’s laziness and our low self image versus the “goras’? I hope the UN Secretary-General, roped in at the eleventh hour too, didn’t say this was a great honour for Korea, his homeland.

Tail Piece: "Getting Amitabh Bachchan to carry Olympic torch through London is almighty coup for tourism in Britain"
                                           -@VisitBritainBiz tweets to its 4,700 follows.
 
Commentator Irna Qureshi rubs it in even more. The Guardian quotes her thus: “I suspect this (AB’s run) is a calculated move which has less to do with sport and community, and more to do with economics. If the Olympics are good for tourism, then Britain has its sights on the fastest growing outbound tourist market in the world – India. Encouraged by visitor figures in recent years, VisitBritain, the national tourism agency for marketing Britain overseas, wants to entice a greater number of Indians to choose Britain for their next holiday. With this in mind, VisitBritain is currently rolling out a £25 million marketing campaign, which involves saturating Mumbai and Delhi with huge billboard posters, 200 specially branded taxis, as well as a 60 second advert being played across 120 cinemas.”

How is any of this an honour for India, Mr Bachchan?