Sitcom Proposal: The 2010 Commonwealth Games (With Videos)

If any major sporting event ever cried out to be a sit-com, the 2010 Commonwealth games in New Delhi is it. 

I mean, really, tell me another event sporting every type of construction snafu you can imagine from falling bridges, to the roof of a stadium collapsing, to mosquitoes attacking workers, to public toilets without water, to snakes in the athletic village, to marauding dogs and monkeys.

That's not even the funny parts — the budget busts, the embarrassed politicians, the local newshounds getting their scoops. We even have a few politicians insisting New Delhi will get the next Olympic games.  

On top of that you've collected athletes from all over the British Commonwealth, some from countries that don't get along. 

I'll send in a sit-com proposal next week, but first I'll share it with you guys.

We'll make Cigar-guy a principal character. He's a Londoner of Indian decent and he'll be peeking in on every scene. We may even have him playing several characters: a news anchor, a construction worker, a snake wrangler, a monkey trainer, a long distance runner.

After every dramatically hilarious scene, the actors will dance Bhangra. An athlete lays down to rest in his bunk. Then a hissing cobra springs up at the foot of his bed. Athlete springs out the window. Cigar-guy comes in, puts the cobra in a sack, everyone dances the bhangra.  Even the cobra.

How many athletic villages have cobras in them? Or monkeys? You may have read about the cobras but did you hear about the monkeys? When they built the athletic village, miles of trees were displaced. Trees housing urbanized monkeys. The monkeys didn't have a vote. They weren't happy about plans to relocate them into rural forests. They were rhesus city monkeys... and they were mad. Mad enough to form a marauding gang.

You know how the New Delhi authorities handled the monkey problem? They called out the monkey police. And I don't mean policemen specialized in dealing with monkeys. I mean monkeys trained to do police work. Trained langur monkeys policing the wild monkeys. 40 grey langurs assigned to scare off the gangs of rhesus monkeys. Check out this video.

We'll put Cigar-guy right in the middle of the monkey action. Rhesus monkeys steal cameras, take pictures of Cigar-guy, fark the pics to make it look like he's making out with monkeys, place it on the web, get big monkey laughs, steal his cigar, piss him off.  Everyone dances the bhangra.

We'll have Indian actors play real characters. And when all the construction problems and the mosquito problems and the monkey problems come to light, they will always be discounted and poo-pooed by the Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit.

Yes, this whole undertaking entrusted into the hands of Sheila Dikshit, Delhi chief minister. Not sure who we'll have playing her part, but every time she leaves a scene, the person she was talking to will say "Did she just tell me her name was... Dikshit?"

Running gag... and then everyone, including Sheila Dikshit, dances the bhangra.

Now, from what I've read, even with all these problems the games went off pretty well. If any readers attended, let us know. I found that amazing because as late as September 22, two weeks before the start of the October 3rd start, Melbourne was offering to step in and host the games.

To get things cleaned up, plumbing fixed, monkeys mobilized (they've got a tough union) in that short of time is applauded.

One can say Sheila Dikshit really does have her... er... uh... stuff... together.