The Sania-Shoaib honeymoon is still on (Games Sidelights)

NEW DELHI - Sania Mirza and Shoaib Mailk have been married for over six months. But seeing the Indian-Pakistani pair at the Commonwealth Games together clearly shows their honeymoon is far from over.

On Thursday, when Sania was waiting for her turn at the R.K. Khanna tennis stadium to play the mixed doubles with Leander Paes against Scotland’s Colin Fleming and Jocelyn Rae, she was sitting with none other than her husband.

Although she was watching Rushmi Chakravarthi play against Australian Olivia Rogowska, she was seen constantly chatting with Shoaib.

Later when she sat down to relax after not performing so well, she looked up at the box where her husband was sitting. Mailk just gestured with his hand telling her to relax. But his presence did not help as she and Paes crashed out. She however won her singles matches and hopes to get a gold for India.

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Indian hospitality at its best

The wrestling arena is teeming with mediapersons as the Indian gold rush continues. But food is in short supply.

Mediapersons, hopping from one venue to the other, have to survive on empty stomach. When a foreign journalist approached an attendant at the food counter for some food, the attendant said he had run out of stuff.

But then suddenly he took out a plate of sandwiches from under the table and gave it to the reporter. “That’s my plate. I saved it for myself, but could not find the time to eat. You can take it sir,” the attendant said. Naturally, the journalist, who had written some negative pieces on Indian organisation before he came, was floored by Indian hospitality.

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Crowd loves shuttlers’ showmanship

The badminton court at Siri Fort Sports Complex turned almost into a gymnastics arena.

Canadian David Snider broke into an impromptu somersault after losing a close match to Chetan Anand and the fans at the stadium went berserk cheering Snider. So it was but natural that Anand’s victory celebration took a backseat.

It was Snider’s way to salute the crowd.”It was impromptu. The crowd was great and they just got behind both of us,” he said.

Watson Briggs of Scotland evoked similar response from the crowd with his acrobatics. Left handed Briggs, after losing his racquet, did a football-like kick to send the shuttle to the other end, sending the crowd into raptures.

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Women weightlifters cheered

There was no Indian in the reckoning, but the stalls were three-quarters full and the enthusiasm high among the spectators.

At the weightlifting venue Friday afternoon at the Jawaharlal Nehru stadium complex, women competitors in the 69 kg category from different countries gritted their teeth and heaved into the air unbelievable weights — 110 kg, then 115 kg, and finally 130 kg! And the spectators, including many children, cheered lustily. And what is more, they waited till the end of the medal giving ceremony and cheered the winners again.

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Fear of the white man

The media - both Indian and Western - are far too critical of the Games and do not see the plenty of good things that are happening, say the young Games’s volunteers.

Near the Talkatora Stadium, the venue of the swimming events, a footbridge escalator and lifts were not working. Some volunteers even tried to get them working. But then another said: “Don’t try to repair it. If some white man gets stuck, it will land us in trouble. Leave it like that.”

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When even grim cops smile

There is no doubt that security is very tight and not even a bird could enter the games venues. So when a young girl, who was coming to watch the match for the first in her life, was being frisked, she got the scare of her life.

As the women constables were body searching her too closely, she exclaimed: “What are you doing!” This was enough to make the tough looking women cop smile.