Bengali in Beijing - Randomness

Just to put up some stray photographs before deleting the pictures from my camera. As you will see, most of the time so far has been spent around the Olympics, but the Indians are slowly inching their way away from the Games, and that's slowly giving me more and more time to explore the city. Those photos will come up gradually.

Officials of Lenovo - the man in the light blue jacket is the chief designer of the company - the guy responsible for the beautiful 'Cloud of Promise' Olympic torch, lying in front of him.

Behind me, the badminton courts - Saina Nehwal is crashing out while this photograph is being taken.

The Games volunteers celebrate the birthday of one of the kids at the Worker's Gymnasium - the boxing arena.
More from the Federer Experience. This is Day Two. King Roger walks in - he walked out less than an hour later having demolished Paes and Bhupathi along with Wawrinka.
From the match. An action shot that's remotely acceptable. The rest have all been discarded. Federer's just served out wide to Bhupathi's backhand. Bhupathi will return it for Wawrinka to volley home a winner.

At the Independence Day celebration at the Ambassador's residence. Former MEA Spokesperson Nirupama Rao is the Ambassador. Nice gathering of Beijing Indians - about 300 of them. Nice occasion. But afterwards we were treated to bad, small, red samosas, soggy kachoris and sweet paav-bhajis. Why?!
Aah! My favourite. Old man peddling something Chinese - his face is exactly like the Kabuki mask we have at home.

Communication is always a hassle in Beijing. English is hardly spoken, though a whole generation of locals are being forced to study the language now. Not well enough though. As this photo explains. It's mostly sign language. Some vague sounds and grunts. A lot of nothingness. But so far we have gotten by.