Beijing, 29 Sept, 10 am, Local Time
And once again, the limitations of not knowing Mandarin, were evident. We struggled for 15 minutes at the gate of the media centre to convince the guards that we had come to collect our passes. He did not understand our English, we didn't know what he was talking about in Mandarin.
It was only after we got through to the media officer on the phone, that the lady came to our rescue.
Before that, we had managed to do a stand up for today and shoot some general scene on the street. The weather is not with us today. Its overcast and foggy so Suresh my Camera person colleague is not happy with the quality of light. "It does not give me depth," he says.
Most important buildings are decorated. Families, young men and women are all photographing themselves against important landmarks. We are told that the Tiananmen Square where the main celebrations--the grand military parade--will take place, is already closed for traffic.
Security is extremely tight. Riot and traffic police are deployed at key intersections and roads. We are warned that traffic is going to be stopped at many places on Thursday. As it is traffic is a nightmare at the moment. Keeping our fingers crossed for the traffic condition on Thursday.
We have now got into the Media Centre which has all the facilities a journalist can ask for: telephones, information officers, internet access, several terminals to work at and a friendly staff.
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A student of conflicts, insurgencies and wars, Nitin Gokhale has spent 26 years reporting on military and militants from various hostile fields like India's north-east, Kashmir valley, the Kargil war, China and Sri Lanka, among others. He's currently NDTV's Defence and Strategic Affairs Editor.
