There were two Indias on display last night. In the stadium – where weeks of problems and embarrassment over the Games' shambolic preparations were swept aside by an inspirational opening ceremony directed by the veteran movie producer Shyam Benegal – was the India the establishment wished to display to athletes, spectators and millions of viewers.
It was the India of flair and imagination, of first-class technology and channeled energy, a "rising superpower", in the words of Suresh Kalmadi, the organising committee's chairman and the man widely blamed for the stumbles in preparation, who was booed during his welcoming speech.
This was the India proud of its past, proud of its culture, aware of the value of its people. It was the very best of a country bloated with potential and only the mean-spirited would have suggested that the ceremony was not world-class. Even the athletes from India's arch-rival, Pakistan, earned a rousing, big-hearted reception.
But outside the stadium was the India that did not find a place before the television cameras, whose residents were deemed too unsightly not to be hidden from view by special screens. People like Anthony Peter and his wife. The couple have lived in so-called Coolie Camp colony for more than 10 years. Life there is hard: mains electricity came a couple of years ago, but water still has to be pumped by hand from a shared tap or gathered in buckets from a tanker. Earlier this summer, the authorities used bulldozers to crush the cluster of shacks and simple shops from which many of the community's residents scrabbled a living. People feared the heavy machinery would soon come for their homes.