July 28, 1997, Delhi National Stadium, Night
The lights were a ghastly white, like the illumination in a morgue.
The stench of cow dung and vomit, mixed with the sickly sweet scent of cheap spices, along with the smell of sweat, dust, and a deeper, despair-like metallic odor, fermented in the sweltering air of the stadium.
On the track, over twenty "Divine Bulls" were finally herded to a corner of the field by staff wielding bamboo sticks and lassos, along with a few hastily hired, nervous herdsmen.
But their "blessings"—puddles of either fresh or semi-dry dark brown filth—decorated the patchwork red track like malicious abstract paintings.
The awarding ceremony was canceled.
Or rather, no one even remembered it.
Ugandan athlete Joseph Mengo, the nominal champion of the ten thousand meters, was at this moment wrapped in a dirty towel, slumped at the edge of the shot-put area, his gaze vacant.
