85. India- The Flame: A Masturbated Reality

The Imperial Forum is empty...
There are no people in the streets...

If you can’t have the real thing, you do the next best thing. That seems to be the new attitude taken on by the countries who have the pain to host the torch- after all the Chinese are only concerned to take a snap shot of the flame going from one bearer to another, from one country to another, to prove what? That there were crowds in the streets cheering in the real spirits of the Olympics- That’s what they will tell you, and the folks back home, after all they have the photos to prove it- photos that enact the act but in effect nothing is real- just a real masturbation of the real thing.

But the real photos that I have managed to get hold of are quite different...
The torch is passed from one bearer to another in a matter of seconds...
There isn’t a single soul in the street who is not military security or press...


Delhi’s Imperial Forum is a desert...
But in other parts of India there are protestations...
The streets are crowded with a different crowd...



There is another flame carried by the elders...
Another flame carried by the Tibetans in exile...

Why?