With his country's flag flying between Iceland's and Ireland's, Keshavan strutted across the icy Salt Lake City stage -- alone.
India, home to 1,029,991,145 bodies, or roughly enough for three Nike factories, has just one athlete at the Games.
Talk about carrying the weight of a nation on your shoulders. This is the second straight time Keshavan has done so. In 1998, he finished 28th in the luge, and the Indian National Olympic Committee sent his father to act as India's "official in charge."
India has competed in six of the 19 Winter Games and has never won a medal. Bermuda, Cameroon, Cyprus, Fiji, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Nepal, San Marino, South Africa and Tajikistan also sent just a single soul to Utah. Nine from Liechtenstein, population 32,207, attended. China has a women's hockey team.
Not India. What's going on there? Aren't part of the Himalayas in India?
Now, whenever I see a problem of great social concern such as this, I feel compelled to stand up and do something about it. That's just my nature.
So I employed two friends to train for the 2006 Winter Games. We'll call them "Nisu" (KNEE-shoe) and "Mital" (ME 'so horny'-tall) to save any embarrassment and to minimize their celebrity. All we needed was a sport.
I'd been hearing about this skeleton event, in the Olympics for the third time ever and first time since 1948. Seemed like as good an opportunity as any to bring a medal to the subcontinent.
Basically, skeleton embodies the type of sledding that only the "special" kids in your neighborhood attempted while growing up. On a small sled with steel runners, competitors get a running start and rocket down a hill of ice ... belly down and head first -- known as the "prone" position. The sled and nutcase on top can weigh up to 253 pounds.