SPECIAL REPORT: AKSHAY LIGHTS OLYMPIC FLAME

Akshay Kumar is taking his role as the brand ambassador for Special Olympics seriously. The Bollywood actor, currently enjoying the success of his comedy Garam Masala, visited Delhi along with the chief minister Sheila Dikshit to open the five-day-long games at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium on 27th of November, 2005.

Accompanied with a special athlete in the stadium, Akshay Kumar lit the ‘Flame of Hope’. The Special Olympics, called ‘Bharat (India), is organised to reach the physically and mentally challenged through the world of sports. The Special Olympics goal is to provide year-round sports training and athletic competition in a variety of Olympic type sports for children and adults with intellectual disabilities by giving them continuing opportunities to develop physical fitness, demonstrate courage, experience joy, and participate in a sharing of gifts, skills, and friendship with their families, other Special Olympics athletes and the community.

“We should treat them equal and they should deserve the same respect, fame and adulation like any other normal athletes," commented Akshay Kumar, in a bid to spread awareness about the event, in which 60,000 athletes will take part.

The luminous actor’s new mission revolves around bringing smile on the faces of children who are stripped of sunshine. The star had earlier appealed to the media to scribble down the lexis on the mentally challenged people. "There's nothing shameful about being psychologically challenged. Such people need to live their lives normally because they are normal people. There are 30 million mentally challenged people in India. Of these 95 percent live their lives in anonymity. Their own parents and families treat them as shameful secrets. That's so wrong," concluded Akshay.

WRITTEN BY GOHER IQBAL PUNN (Bollywood Analyst)