Zombies versus churails

Could you have an equally successful version with churails and djinns? Perhaps, but Grahame-Smith’s success is also because of the public fascination with zombies, vampires and werewolves. Werewolves come from the Old Norse vargulf, and were feared as actual threats several centuries ago. Zombies originated in Haiti, but the idea of revenants—the walking dead—was very much part of Old English folklore. Vampires, especially the Transylvanian kind, reached the peak of their popularity in the 18th century.

True zombies, vampires and werewolves have not been feared for at least two centuries. But their place in the popular imagination has been maintained by horror movies and novels as well as several generations of gamers. Stephenie Meyers’ Twilight series elevated the classic vampire love story to interspecies romance, with a werewolf vying for the hand of the beautiful Bella. (via Nilanjana S Roy: Zombies versus churails).

Why are Indians so bad at horror films …

Why does the largest film production culture, i.e. India not produce Jaws, Jurassic Park (animals as malevolent monsters; justifying the extermination of huge swathes of wild life, “good that we have exterminated them”). Where is the Indian Dracula or Frankenstein? In all its 25 major languages and more than 500 plus dialects, Indians don’t have a national ‘monster’ culture? The writer of this column writes, almost complainingly, how

But few have carried on the legacy of Rabindranath Tagore, who wrote some of the most chilling ghost stories of all time—Khudito Pashan (The Hungry Stones) being perhaps the best of them. It’s not for lack of talent—for instance, Tarun Tejpal and Ravi Shankar Etteth have both played around with the ghost story. Ravi Shankar wrote at least one classic, featuring a busload of highly unusual passengers in war-ravaged Kashmir. In 1914, a Mr S Mukerji compiled a set of Indian ghost stories

The Ramsay family tried keeping the ‘horror’ flag flying. But most of their ‘horror’ films finally turned out to be romantic comedies – with a token presence of the ‘horror’ element.

The Indic spread

Other Indian themes have crossed languages, geographies, cultures – and spread all over the world. Witness the spread of Ramayana or how Sanskrit defined most languages of the world. After more than 1000 years of aggression, the Desert Bloc has only half the world as its adherents – though they have 80% of the world’s geography. The Indic belief systems still accounts for half the world’s population.

Why indeed does India have a scarcity of ‘monsters’. Even Indian asuras are not really monsters or devils! This columnist speculates that

perhaps something of the belief that ghost stories are for the masses, not for the purveyors of high literature, has rubbed off on to our authors. That, given India’s rich heritage of dakinis, betaals, nishibhoots and other things that go bump in the night, is a sad mistake.

To understand this better, let us look at the world’s most fertile ground for ‘monsters’ …

Medieval – Renaissance Europe

16th century Europe – specifically, Spain and Portugal. The last of the Moors had been driven out of Spain. The Christian standard was flying high. The Papal Bull divided the Earth (for the Europeans) between Spain and Portugal. White Christian rulers of Spain, Isabella and Ferdinand, set historic standards in persecution and extortion. More than a million Jews were killed, crucified, burnt alive; their properties confiscated and distributed. Columbus returned to enslave the American Natives – and subsequently, work them to death.

New chapters in bloodshed were being written by conquistadors like Vasco Nunez De Balboa, Francisco Pizarro, Juan Ponce de Leon, Hernando de Soto, Hernando Cortez, et al. Not to forget the search for El Dorado led by, “above all, that prince of monsters Lope de Aquirre, colour the pages with the darkest hues of bloody emprise.” In South American memory, Francisco de Carvajal, the “demon of the Andes” remains alive. These real-life monsters set new standards in brutality, slavery and genocide.

Europe in the sixteenth century was “obsessed with questions of language, and especially so in Spain and its recently conquered American Empire“ (emphasis mine). This was driven by

what Marshal McLuhan called “the hypertrophy of the unconscious,” a phenomenon he associated with periods of revolution in media technology: the advent of print in the 16th century created a great need for sensational materials to be broadcast, and this need caused ideas that formerly had been only lurking in the dark recesses of men’s minds to come floating to the surface.

One of the great bestsellers of the 16th century was the Histoires prodigieuses of Pierre Boaistuau (Paris, 1560), a sort of Renaissance Ripley’s Believe-it-or-not containing marvelous tales on everything … Seventeen of the Histoires forty tales are about monsters, a fact that may explain why the book was republished anywhere from ten to twenty two times and translated into Dutch, Spanish and English. (from Popular culture in the Middle Ages By Josie P. Campbell).

Spanish literature of the Renaissance

From this hotbed of ferment, a representative of this period was Calderon de la Barca (1600-1681), the Spanish writer. Growing up in a Spain, a 100 years after the Conquistadors, benefiting from the twin advantages of fresh memory and hindsight - “a century of Janus, facing backward, towards the rise of the Spanish Empire … and forward, toward its decline.” His more than a 100 plays and writings represent 17th century Spain, significantly – and even Europe.

There is probably no word that is more characteristic of Calderon de la Barca’s art than monstruo, “monster.” Rare is the play in which the word does not appear several times … (from Celestina’s brood By Roberto González Echevarría).

Calderon’s play about Semiramis, the Assyrian Empire builder, showed her in a monster mode – her hybrid character the most masculine modes and the most feminine, a monster of destruction and creation”. And Calderon was not alone. The fertile growth of monsters gave birth to a new study – teratology, the study of monsters.

“Monster lore truly becomes “popular culture” only with the Renaissance … Fresh works on the subject of teratology are written by Italians, Germans, and Frenchmen. The foreruuner of the modern newspaper, the broadside were bought at street corners and at fairs by the barely literate masses. The great reformers Luther and Melanchthon used the broadside medium to popularize their propagandistic and anti-Catholic versions of two of the most famous monsters of the Renaissance, the Monk-calf of Freiburg and the Pope-ass of Rome. (from Popular culture in the Middle Ages By Josie P. Campbell).

Some of Calderon’s plays dealt with the proselytization of the Native Americans – like his play, La Aurora En Copacabana (Dawn in the Copacabana), described as a play about “the conquest and conversion of the Indians in Peru”

The success of the conquest, therefore, is attributed to (Christian) faith which is valued as mans greatest gift to the world … Thus (Christian) conquest becomes a form of colonisation with the purpose of imposing religion and culture on a land “que habitan inhumanos” (512) and is in need of redemption and education. Finally, the play tries to harmonise irreconcilable contradictions which lie at the bottom of colonial discourse. (texts in brackets and italics mine).

With this idea, must be seen something important. That is the important element of “the escape of the monster.” In the … Monster Theory, Joel Cohen has remarked that the monster always escapes. Now combine the three elements – the newly acquired colonies of America, the proselytization (or otheriwse, the genocide) and the escape of the monster. These were the ‘monsters’ of colonialism.

A very interesting play by Calderon was La vida es sueño (Life is a dream). It tells the story of Segismundo, the Prince Of Poland, who was destined to be a monster. To forestall the prophecy, Segismundo was imprisoned by his father from the time of his birth. In adulthood, released from prison to test the prediction, Segismundo fulfills the prophecy. As a analyst of Calderon’s work summarizes,

Affirming a “better reality,” Segismundo’s message speaks as well to all of Europe: the “new European man” is the real monster. (from The subject in question By C. Christopher Soufas).

200 years after Calderon, HG Wells, in the The Island of Doctor Moreau, foretold Joseph Menegle’s experiments rather well.

Onshore genocide – The Roma Gypsies

Apart from the Jewish persecution, less known is the the persecution of the Roma Gypsy, which continues till date. In Europe, kidnapping children was considered legal for most of 1500AD-1750AD. On one condition – you had to kidnap Roma Gypsy children! More than 25,000 children kidnapped. No problem. Everybody sleeps peacefully at night. Switzerland was doing this till 1973!

Roughly, between 1500 to 1750, it was legal in Europe to hunt human beings. Yes! Just like hunting for deer in India, or hunting buffalo in Africa or fox-hunting in Britain. Yes! You could hunt human beings. As long as the humans you hunted were Roma Gypsies. In Europe you could be hung to death if you committed the crime of being born – between 1500AD-1750AD! Born as a Roma Gypsy!

Europeans, in the their age of Enlightenment and Renaissance, (1500-1750) could just pick up human slaves – yes, own them like cattle and furniture, if you found one! As long as they were Roma Gypsies. Later you could also sell them for profit!

Ship owners and captains in Europe’s Golden age, (1500-1750) could arrange galley slaves for free. No wages, no salary. You just had to feed them. Use them, abuse them, flog them, kill them, drown them. You could do anything – as long as they were Roma Gypsies.

What set off the Roma Gypsy Genocide

In 1420, a 60 year old man, blind in one eye took charge – and took on the might of the Roman Church and Roman Emperors.

Jan Zizka.

Over the next 12 months, he became completely blind. In the next 15 years, Zizka (and other Czech generals) defeated, many times, the combined armies of Germany, The Roman Church and others. His military strategy was studied for the next 500 years. Thereafter, the myth of military might of the Church was broken forever.

Jan Zizka allied himself with the Taborites (the radical Hussite wing). Zizka made Tábor in Bohemia into an armored and mobile fortress – the Wagenburgs.

Interestingly, a 100 years after the Hussite Wars, the European persecution of the Roma Gypsies began in full earnest. And during WW2, the Vatican joined with the Nazi collaborators, the Ustashe,  to extort gold and the genocide against the Roma Gyspises.

Military success

Zizka ranks with the great military innovators of all time. Zizka’s army was made up of untrained peasants and burghers (townspeople). He did not have the time or resources to train these fighters in armament and tactics of the time. Instead they used weapons like iron-tipped pikes and flails, armored farm wagons, mounted with small, howitzer type cannons.

His armored wagons, led by the Taborites, in offensive movements, broke through the enemy lines, firing as they rolled, cutting superior forces into pieces. For defense, the wagons were arranged into a tight, impregnable barrier surrounding the foot soldiers – the Wagenburg (the wagon fort), as they came to be known. The wagons also served to transport his men. Zizka thus fully initiated modern tank warfare. Zizka’s experience under various commanders was useful. At the Battle of Tannenberg (1410), Zizka fought on the Polish side , in which the famed German Teutonic Knights were defeated.

Roma Gypsy Wagon Caravan

Coming back …

Who were the major users of the wagons in Europe then (and now?) Answer – The Roma Gypsies.

Who were the people who could pose spiritual and ecclesiastical questions to the Vatican? Answer – The Gypsies, with their Indian heritage, were not not new to spiritual dialectics (contests, discourse and debates). For instance, Mani, and his adherents, an Indic teacher of Buddhist thought, known to Christians as Manichean thought, were the nightmare for Christianity till the 15th century. When Mani called for overthrow of slavery, the Vatican at the Council of Gangra, re-affirmed its faith in slavery. European minds were occupied with the questions raised by the Hussite reformers.

Some think they (the Waldensians) had held them for centuries; some think they had learned them recently from the Taborites. If scholars insist on this latter view, we are forced back on the further question: Where did the Taborites get their advanced opinions? If the Taborites taught the Waldenses, who taught the Taborites?

Who were the people who could help the persecuted Waldensians, the Bogomils, the Cathars to escape persecution and spread out across the Europe? Answer – The Roma Gypsies – in their wagons. The same Gypsies, had earlier pioneered the Troubadour culture in the Provence Region, which provoked the Albigensian Crusade by the Vatican.

Prokop Coat Of Arms

And who was the King of the Taborites? Answer – An entire clan of leaders who called themselves as Prokop (The Shaven /Bald; The Little and The Great) were the military leaders of the Taborites.

The word and name Prokop have no meaning in any European language – except in Sanskrit, where it means vengeance, retribution, violent justice.

Mythology as History

Jan Hus initiated the Reformation in the Vatican Church. It was Jan Zizka who broke the back of Papal authority. On the back of these Czech successes, was laid the foundation of 95 Theses by Martin Luther in 1517. The British break (1533-34) with the Holy Roman Church happened due to favors by the Papal office to the Iberian Empires – in matters of trade and colonial expansion, and the impediments to divorce of Henry-VIII at the behest of the Spanish rulers.

Today, the Germans and the British are loath to be reminded about the Czech Church Reform initiatives and the defeats at the hands of the Poles and Czechs. Western historiography about the Enlightenment and Renaissance, in Britain, France and Germany, leading to the reformation is ‘mythology as history’.

Of course, the role of the Greek Orthodox Church, the Byzantine Empire in the entire Czech saga is also worth re-examining. Were the Hussite Wars, a proxy war waged by the Eastern Church against the Vatican?

Dracula, Frankenstein, Dr Jekyll and Mr.Hyde

In the 19th century came the monster story was dubbed as Gothic – and this form of story-telling matured as a craft.

A significant array of Gothic writers emerged from Ireland (from Charles Maturin, Sheridan Le Fanu, Bram Stoker, and Oscar Wilde to the contemporary writer Patrick McGrath), in a colonial situation where a Protestant minority was the colonial occupier. (from Late Victorian Gothic tales By Roger Luckhurst)

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797–1851), wife of Percy Bysshe Shelley started writing Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus, at the age of 18, and completed it one year later. First published in London, anonymously, in 1818 by small London publishing house of Harding, Mavor & Jones – after previous rejections by bigger publishers like Charles Ollier (Percy Bysshe Shelley’s publisher), and John Murray (by Byron’s publisher). The writer’s name started appearing from the second edition of 1823 onwards. The interesting aspect, lost in popular usge, is that the monster is not named – and Frankenstein was the scientist, who brought the monster to life.

In 1886, Robert Louis Stevenson’s book, The Strange Case of Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde was first published. This explored how ‘normal’ (Dr.Jekyll) human beings could become ‘evil’ (Mr.Hyde).

And in 1887, Bram Stoker, an Irish writer published his Dracula. The character of Dracula is based on Emperor Sigismund and his Order of the Dragon, who waged war against the Hussites – led by Jan Zizka. Infamous for his betrayal of Jan Hus, he sparked of the Hussite Wars, in which the Taborites (the Roma Gypsies) used wagons and gun powder for the first time in Europe. He founded a secret sect,  the “Dracul” called the Order of the Dragon.

Of course, these three are the most famous – but not the only ones. Sheridan Le Fanu’s 1871 “Carmilla“, about a lesbian vampire was another monster book of its time. An associate of Mary Shelley, John Polidori created the character of the “The Vampyre” in 1819 – on which possibly Dracula was based.

Most significantly, in 1896, was HG Well’s The Island of Doctor Moreau, which presaged Joseph Mengele – when Joseph Mengele had not even started on his higher education. A good 50 years before Joseph Mengele’s experiments were discovered by a shocked world.

The wellspring of these works is H.G. Wells’ The Island of Dr. Moreau. In this 1896 novel, a vivisectionist attempts to transform animals into men until the misshapen creatures revert and kill him, the forces of nature overcoming man’s civilizing artifices. From The Boys From Brazil (Auschwitz doctor Josef Mengele, alive and well and cloning Hitlers at a secret lab in the Brazilian Amazon) to Jurassic Park (Richard Attenborough alive and well and cloning velociraptors), Wells’ basic formula has become familiar: an island; a Frankensteinian experiment; a Faustian scientist; something gone terribly, terribly wrong. (from Requiem for the Mad Scientist By Arthur Allen, in Slate).

From the 1700-1800, while Spain was in decline, for about a 100 years, Western literary field did not see too much action on the monster front. The main action was in Haiti, where zombies, the ex-murderers, the living dead became a part of the voodoo cult.

The late Victorian era was one of the most expansive phases of the empire. Britain annexed some thirty-nine separate areas around the world between 1870-1900, in competition with newly aggressive America in the Pacific or the European powers in the so-called ‘Scramble for Africa’ after the continent was divided up at the Berlin conference of 1885. (from Late Victorian Gothic tales By Roger Luckhurst)

The last of the true great monster in popular culture came from the East. Soon after WW2, as tales of Japanese atrocities started coming out and as American atrocities in Vietnam started, Godzilla came out of Japan. But a different pressure head was building up, which gave rise to a new genre – detective fiction.

Euro-Pessimism

Between 1800-1950, Western powers killed (directly or otherwise) more than 50 million people in America (the Native Americans), Africa (the Native Africans), Asia (Indians, Chinese, Arabs). This led to a situation that every other person in the West had participated in murder or massacre – unlike the few Conquistadors. Western ambiguity towards Soviet Russia on one side, Hitler on the other was itself a concern. To that add, Gandhiji’s resolute opposition to colonialism and you have a inflammable moral situation.

The deluge of blood and murder caused moral anxiety and was a matter of ethical dilemma amongst common folks. The pressure valve for this was popular fiction. Identifying murderers became a form of proxy, vicarious entertainment for ordinary folks. Enter the super detectives, who pick out the murderer from a room full of ordinary people. Enter detectives like Auguste Dupin, of ‘The Purloined Letter‘ fame, who “investigates an apparently motiveless and unsolvable double murder in the Rue Morgue.”

Murder in Popular Image

The 'racist' imagery in Tintin.

A trend started by Edgar Allan Poe, whose first detective novel, Murders In Rue Morgue (1841) soon became an avalanche. Writers like Agatha Christie (Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple solving murders happening by the second), Georges Simenon (and his Inspector Maigret investigating brutal crimes), Ngaio Marsh (Roderick Alleyn), GK Chesterton (Father Brown), Raymond Chandler (Sam Spade and Phillip Marlowe) dealt with murder. Alfred Hitchcock made horror thrillers in similar themes.

In 1887, Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock series made its debut. Many of Conan Doyle’s characters came from the colonies. Many victims lived in isolated communities. Past (mis)deeds caught up. Crime, murder and malevolence hung in the air like thick smoke. Some of the stories addressed the colour prejudice. The status of England as a super-power was apparent. The intrigue and bloodshed in the India was palpable in stories like the The Sign of Four at the Pondicherry Lodge.

Tintin in Congo

Agatha Christie’s book, filmed as Ten Little Indians, based on the book, initially released (the book) in Britain as Ten Little Niggers (later renamed as Then There None) gives the game away. Agatha Christie probably unconsciously verbalized the White desire to ensure that there should be none of the Red Indians left to tell the tale. The overt racism in Herge’s ‘Tintin in Congo’ made the world sit-up and note the pervasiveness of racism in detective fiction.

Media and academia

Jerome Delamater, Ruth Prigozy, in an essay compilation, ‘Theory and Practice of Classic Detective Fiction’, observe that Jane Marple, along with Hercule “Poirot becomes an equal opportunity detective who really believes that anyone might commit murder”. Dismissing the jaundiced view of human nature,” the writers of this book, while commenting about the detective fiction genre, do not mention slavery at all – and mention colonialism and racism once each.

One writer, Franco Moretti did half the job in book Signs Taken for Wonders: On the Sociology of Literary Forms By Franco Moretti. He writes,

“The perfect crime – the nightmare of detective fiction – is the feature-less, deindividualized crime that anyone could have committed because at this point everyone is the same.” He further writes,“Yet, if we turn to Agatha Christie, the situation is reversed.Her hundred-odd books have only one message: the criminal can be anyone …”

In his entire book he does not use the words like slavery, racism, genocide, bigotry even once. The 19th century, which was based on Western bigotry, White racism, African slavery, and assorted genocides is unrecognised in Moretti’s books.

Running or hiding? Or it a case of feeling squeamish? Perhaps, a case of queasy stomach, Franco?

Another book, The Detective as Historian: History and Art in Historical Crime Fiction, by Ray Broadus Browne, Lawrence A. Kreiser does a better job. This book examines, the detective fiction genre, with some references to slavery and child prostitution.

How was this explained away

As the monsters increased, both in real life and literature, rationalizations were required. A person no less than Immanuel Kant, was pressed into service to deconstruct the ‘monster’, re-invent it and give it a positive spin.

The monster taken up by Kant in an aesthetic sense to refer to those things that exceed representation considers that the monstrous describes an entity whose life force is greater than the matter in which in which it is contained. Thus rather than something that malfunctions during the course of its production, monstrosity is associated during romanticism with “over-exuberant living matter” that extends itself beyond its natural borders in order to affect a much wider sphere. ((from The subject in question By C. Christopher Soufas).

In the twentieth century, Kant’s hypothesis finds an echo when Lord Randolph William Churchill, the ‘Bulldog’ declared

“I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race has come in and taken their place. (from Minorities, peoples, and self-determination By Nazila Ghanea-Hercock, Nazila Ghanea, Alexandra Xanthaki, Patrick Thornberry)

In another instance, Churchill wrote how ‘superior’ Arabs, imposed on the ‘inferior’ negroes.

The stronger race imposed its customs and language on the negroes. The vigour of their blood sensibly altered the facial appearance … (from The River War By Winston Churchill).

The Mystery of the Dying Detective

After de-colonisation, as mass murder went underground, the detective-murder mystery books genre faded. This category was replaced by a new theme – the axis of Corporation-Government-International Conspiracy.

The new category of popular fiction are represented by Ian Fleming, Arthur Hailey, Frederick Forsyth, Irving Wallace, Robert Ludlum, Graham Greene, John Le Carre, et al. More and more contrived, each conspiracy theory writer has been ‘inspired’ by real life incidents.

While Ludlum’s international-conspiracy-plot-CIA-FBI-KGB series have worn thin, the spookiness of Le Carre’s Absolute Friends and Constant Gardner still work as novels representing the West.

Western Twins – Anxiety and Paranoia

To develop this understanding further, there are two classes of films that I wish to draw attention to.

Malignant Nature

Jaws (the shark that eats humans), Jurassic Park (mad scientists, conspiring technicians let loose man eating dinos) Gremlins and Poltergiest (things that go bump in the night). This paranoid fear of nature (and natural laws) seems to be a result of the subterranean knowledge of the way in which ecological damage and pollution is happening. These films produced /directed by Steven Spielberg (who is incomparable because as Time Magazine says, “No one else has put together a more popular body of work”)

Vindictive Humans

The other is the thinly disguised hate and prejudice films against the poor and the victimised. ‘Aliens’ needs just one small change for the films idea to become clear. Instead of LV-426, Nostromo the space ship, receives a distress call from some country in South America or Africa (or India, if you prefer). The meaning is clear when you see the movie while conscious of the fact that alien is is the word the US Government uses for people from other countries.

As for the Indian churails …

Coming to India, a writer notes how

Francesca Orsini identifies the detective  novel as one of the genres that ‘was brought into India ‘ready-made’ without the intellectual and historical substratus that had generated it in Europe’ This total lack of any indigenous roots, one could argue, makes detective  fiction a colonial imposition, and its adoption by Indian writers, clearly a case of copy-cat reproduction wherein ‘black-pens’ write ‘white-texts’ that have no identity of their own. (from Postcolonial postmortems – crime fiction from a transcultural perspective By Christine Matzke, Susanne Muehleisen, page 88).

How very true!

Ms.Christine and Susanne, you have hit the nail right in the centre of head! Your aim is truer than you imagine. Whatta shot! Though I dont know if you have hit the nail deep enough – deep into the heart of the darkness, which gave rise to these genres of Western ‘literature’.

The Indian churail (or pisach or djinni) faces similar problems as the Scandinavian myling or the Er Gui of China: they don’t translate well outside of their culture.

India may have had local incidents, where an oppressive zamindar may have created a market for horror stories and monsters – but without genocide, slavery and massacres to fall back on, popular imagination simply does not have the fodder to create ghouls and monsters.

And that is reason for Indian churails being rare – not lack of literary ability in Indians.

Military success

Zizka ranks with the great military innovators of all time. Zizka’s army was made up of untrained peasants and burghers (townspeople). He did not have the time or resources to train these fighters in armament and tactics of the time. Instead they used weapons like iron-tipped pikes and flails, armored farm wagons, mounted with small, howitzer type cannons.

His armored wagons, led by the Taborites, in offensive movements, broke through the enemy lines, firing as they rolled, cutting superior forces into pieces. For defense, the wagons were arranged into a tight, impregnable barrier surrounding the foot soldiers – the Wagenburg (the wagon fort), as they came to be known. The wagons also served to transport his men. Zizka thus fully initiated modern tank warfare. Zizka’s experience under various commanders was useful. At the battle of Tannenberg (1410), Zizka fought on the Polish side , in which the famed German Teutonic Knights were defeated.

‘Frothy’ Alan and ‘Helicopter’ Ben

The Great Recession – The Start, The Beginning, The Blame and The Game.

Helicopter Ben just wont stop ...

Running and hiding …

In the last 5 years, more than US$10 trillion (lowest estimate) were printed and pumped into the world economy. Now the world is awash with dollars.

Where did this money go? How was this used?

“Lendings by US commercial banks in the period 2000 to 2004 soared by altogether USD 1,500bn to USD 6,750bn. In the European Monetary Union lending to the private sector by monetary financial institutions (MFI) climbed from roughly EUR 6,200bn end-1999 to not quite EUR 8,700bn at the end of last year.” – Allianz Report, Dresdner Bank. (Links mine)

The recipients of this largesse, mainly Western banks made (it was whispered) bad loans worth 300-400 billion dollars.

Actual figures coming out now are about 20 times as much.

Much higher.

The Other Story

The loans story does not end there. These loans were in turn sold and re-sold, then packaged and mortgaged, derived and contrived – finally ballooning into the ‘sub-prime’ crisis.

Are these welfare payouts by another name?  US Consumers are not repaying their housing loans.

Who will pay for this “lending”? Some one has to!

Back to basics

And that is the root of the problem.

The West is trying to make Asians pay! And people like Ben Bernanke, Alan Greenspan et al are paid hacks to create a logic by which the West will try and make the poor pay.

Nothing less!

As I noted on this page in December 2007, the presumptive cause of the world-wide decline in long-term rates was the tectonic shift in the early 1990s by much of the developing world from heavy emphasis on central planning to increasingly dynamic, export-led market competition. The result was a surge in growth in China and a large number of other emerging market economies that led to an excess of global intended savings relative to intended capital investment. That ex ante excess of savings propelled global long-term interest rates progressively lower between early 2000 and 2005. (via Alan Greenspan Says the Federal Reserve Didn’t Cause the Housing Bubble – WSJ.com).

Poor Al! Credited - and then blamed for almost all things good and then bad with American economy. | Book cover; source & courtesy - imagesbn.com | Click for larger image.

Nobel prize … slipping away

Poor Al!

He can see the Nobel Prize slipping away from him. What can he do?

Blaming Asians is good start point.

Alan Greenspan is not below using Ben Bernanke’s rubbish ‘theories’ to save his sagging hide. So … Who really is responsible for this Great Recession?

The truth? You want the truth?

The Real Culprits … mea culpa

…the true culprits lie halfway around the world. High-saving Asian households and dollar-hoarding foreign central banks produced a global savings “glut,” which pushed real interest rates into negative territory, in turn stoking the US housing bubble while sending financiers on ever-riskier ventures with borrowed money. Macroeconomic policymakers could have gotten their act together and acted in time to unwind those large and unsustainable current-account imbalances. Then there would not have been so much liquidity sloshing around waiting for an accident to happen. (Dani Rodrik: Who killed Wall Street?).

Ben Bernanke or his printing press and helicopters are not mentioned. Even once. The evasion of Federal Reserve on M3 figures is not mentioned. At all. China which funded the US to the extent of US$2 trillion is not mentioned. Not once. Japan which funded the US to the extent of US$1 trillion is ignored. Alan Greenspan is mentioned once.

But Asians countries who are facing a meltdown in forex reserves, due to dollar depreciation, are instead mentioned as culprits. A new level in being brazen.

Wow.  Keep it up Dani boy.

Blame Bush, Greenspan, Bernanke

Looked at with 20:20 hindsight, this crisis originated in a macro sense with the US Federal Reserve and the Bush administration. Since the dot.com bubble burst in 2000, and in the aftermath of 9/11/01, the Bush administration ran unprecedented fiscal and current account deficits to finance: bizarre wars, tax cuts and egregious public over-consumption, all fuelled by debt bought by the rest of the world. Such insane profligacy was financed by a massive Fed-blown bubble of liquidity. Estimates of the cumulative excess liquidity bubble blown by the Fed to finance these and other private follies range from $8 trillion to $12 trillion. The US Congress was equally culpable, for letting government borrowing limits expand so elastically. So one should be sceptical of the righteous indignation of posturing politicians. The US administration, Congress and Fed were the three main macro-culprits in blowing the money bubble.(via Percy S Mistry: Blame Bush and Greenspan, not just the bankers).

Percy! If you can see this far …

Percy Mistry, a veteran of the Wall Street and the Western financial system, analysed this rather well. Yet, he cant go further than analysis. His prescriptions have been to say the least disappointing.

Percy, what stops you you from taking that leap of imagination! Why not be bold enough to start working on a non-Western model of global financial structure. Why do you persist with the insane desire that developing world (especially India) should dive headlong into this Dollar-Euro cesspool, which is designed basically to suck out wealth from the poor countries of the world.

Does it matter ... what pricked the balloon ...

Hide the Big Truth

One man whose voice is heard much, on the subject of Great Recession, is Stiglitz.

Joseph Stiglitz. Ex-chief economist of the World Bank, (96-99), who resigned one month before his term expired.

Stiglitz published his resignation in the New Republic, portraying himself as a dissident,  the champion of the Third World, anti-World Bank crusader, etc, etc.

Stiglitz portrays himself as a giant, against whom Lawrence Summers and Wolfenson conspired, as he chose “not to circumscribe my thoughts. So I chose to resign.”

How brave!

His targets were (as he chose to describe) “third-rank students from first-rate universities.” Stiglitz knows his media. Too well, some would say.

His article in New Republic, his interview in Financial Express were all excellent ploys to build his reputation. And after all this media management, he did get a Nobel Prize. And after gaining our confidence, he slips in the Big Lie!

Pushing the case for the Big Stimulus, Stiglitz claims that the Big Stimulus

- Is being paid for by the American taxpayer (Godzilla-Sized lie)

- Is something that Big Business in America desperately needs to survive (small truth)

- The Chinese and Japanese are footing this bill (The Big Truth)

- As also are Russians, Indians and ASEAN countries (medium-to-big-truth).

To his credit, what Stiglitz has done is, tell us. A lot of little things.

Little known and little truths about little things.

When economists talk ...

We have been told the truth …

Two more people have told us the ‘truth.’ Ben Bernanke and Lawrence Summers.

Ben Bernanke announced to the world, before the National Economists Club, Washington, D.C. November 21, 2002, that he would print money.

In March 23, 2006, Ben Bernanke further decided not to tell the world how much money he was printing.

Thus Spake Ben Bernanke

Remarks by Governor Ben S. Bernanke, before the National Economists Club, Washington, D.C. November 21, 2002 (ellipsis mine)

U.S. dollars have value only to the extent that they are strictly limited in supply. But the U.S. government has a technology, called a printing press … that allows it to produce as many U.S. dollars as it wishes at essentially no cost. … …the Fed could find other ways of injecting money into the system–for example, by making low-interest-rate loans to banks or cooperating with the fiscal authorities … If we do fall into deflation, however, we can take comfort that the logic of the printing press example must assert itself, and sufficient injections of money will ultimately always reverse a deflation.

A terse announcement by the Federal Reserve Board said,

On March 23, 2006, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System will cease publication of the M3 monetary aggregate. The Board will also cease publishing the following components: large-denomination time deposits, repurchase agreements (RPs), and Eurodollars. The Board will continue to publish institutional money market mutual funds as a memorandum item in this release.

Al ... going from from respect ... to infamy

On November 10, 2006 Ben Bernanke justified,

As I have already suggested, the rapid pace of financial innovation in the United States has been an important reason for the instability of the relationships between monetary aggregates and other macroeconomic variables.

Ben Bernanke has given ample (and more) indications about what he will do. In fact, more than indications, he was brazen enough to say, what exactly he would do!

How can the world blame Ben Bernanke now?

And then came the coup de grace. He went right ahead exploded a propaganda bomb. He decided to inform the world that the cause of the global financial crisis was the Asian ‘savings glut.’

Bindaas. No hesitation. They let it all hang out.

Chiming in

Lawrence Summers described this situation to the RBI, correctly, as “balance of financial terror.” In a speech on March 23, 2004, at the Institute for International Economics, Lawrence Summers described the US strategy as a “balance of financial terror”. Again on March 24, 2006, at the Reserve Bank of India lecture, he repeated his message.

These two, Ben Bernanke and Lawrence Summers, threw down the gauntlet, and challenged central bankers of the world. Seemingly saying, “We are doing this! Stop us if you can! Let us see what you can do about this.” And the central bankers decided to do nothing.

Except whine, beg, plead and cry.

Terrified Al ... might miss out on his Nobel for Economics

What does this mean

An Indian economist explained this rather well.

Suman Bery, writing for a direction towards Toward a robust globalisation, explained,

In a famous speech exactly four years ago, Fed Chairman Bernanke represented the US as responding passively and benignly to the global “savings glut” which had developed following the East Asian crisis of 1997-98.

Even though most closely associated with Chairman Bernanke, this formulation is widely shared by respectable economists and commentators, such as Martin Wolf of the Financial Times, Professor Richard Portes of the London Business School and the Centre for Economic Policy Research, and Professor Max Corden of the University of Melbourne. The task of recycling these imbalances fell on the sophisticated financial systems of the advanced countries. In the event, for a variety of reasons, even they proved unequal to the burden placed upon them.

The trigger ...

The Asian ‘savings glut’ was the problem …

Ben Bernanke joins a long list of Western propagandists, who find ‘specious’ ways to blame others for Western problems. His most recent propaganda gem was to blame Asia for a ‘savings glut.’

a satisfying explanation of the recent upward climb of the U.S. current account deficit requires a global perspective that more fully takes into account events outside the United States. To be more specific, I will argue that over the past decade a combination of diverse forces has created a significant increase in the global supply of saving–a global saving glut–which helps to explain both the increase in the U.S. current account deficit and the relatively low level of long-term real interest rates in the world today.

After Ben Bernanke opened the flood gates of such logic with ‘helicopter drop of dollars’ and ‘printing press technology’, and now the ‘savings glut.’

Others such ‘economists’ have rushed in, to do another tom-tom dance around this logic.

Americans are saints because they are shopping ...

Eureka! It works …

The US and the World economy is suffering from a surfeit of printed money which was channeled into ’supply side’ economics. The model worked exactly as it should have!

The Chinese ‘worker’ and Indian ‘coolie’ worked his backside off. The American ‘consumer’ bloated up debt – and bought all the goodies. The debt mountain became just way too-oooo wobbly.

It crashed.

The Chinese (and Japanese, Indians and the Russians) have been left holding these pieces of paper, called American dollars.

The US has been evading transparency by not revealing M3 figures (on dubious grounds), printing money 24 x 7 x 365 and creating toxic assets. Now when the muck has hit the fan, they are acting coy.

China was right that the US is now looking after its own – and not bothered about the problems the US has created for other countries. Like this news article shows, India is unlikely to get seriously affected – which is possibly creating complacency in India about what needs to be done.

Kojak - we will all need to take a 'haircut'.

India – Poised for stagflation(from InfoChange India News & Features development news).

Why has the dollar been falling steadily? Quite simply, because US-based firms have less and less to sell to the world, though the world has a lot to sell to American consumers. America has lost competitiveness in recent decades, largely to China and East Asia. This growing imbalance in world trade (present for over two decades now) has meant a ballooning trade deficit (excess of imports over exports) for the US. It has paid for this by selling US Treasury Bonds (perhaps the most sovereign, reliable financial asset hitherto) to foreigners. Increasingly, however, the realisation has grown that the US is not in a position to redeem its $10 trillion external debt. This is almost tantamount to saying that in order to pay for goods produced by China the US has merely been printing the required quantity of dollars. Clearly, this is not a sustainable state of affairs.

The World Full Of Kojaks

The 10 trillion dollar external debt is most likely a conservative figure. It is possibly two-or three times that much. Internal debt is of course another matter. The cost of re-floating the US financial system is another US$5 trillion. So, what figure are we talking about?

US$50 trillion? Take that and try digesting it.

The only way, this can happen if the world is asked to take a massive haircut. In fact, we may have to become Kojaks for the next 20-30 years.

For the truth shall set you free …

The current crisis happened for one simple reason.

The US printed too much money, during Alan Greenspan’s tenure – and later Ben Bernanke started hiding these figures. That is all. The Emperor has no clothes at all. The US is bankrupt.

Effete, decadent and declining. Finito. Completo. Terminato. Endlich. Eindig. ändlig.

The (Western) Need For Vengeance

They hadn’t suffered yet but were preparing to, and they were perplexed by their inability to figure out who had the idea for this game. “If I knew more I could find someone to blame,” said Linda Burke, a 57-year-old service consultant at AT&T Inc. in Atlanta, speaking, no doubt, for the American people. (via Let’s start by finding some people to behead – Money Matters – livemint.com).

During the tech meltdown, it was Bernie Ebers (Worldcom) and the Enron guys who were made the fall guys. In 1989, it was Mike Millken. How about indicting Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernake?

These ‘incidents’ also talk about the a Western need for vengeance.

“The scale of this problem has been unprecedented and I expect the response will be, too,” said Robert Mintz, a former federal prosecutor and now a partner at the law firm McCarter and English. Someone is going to have to pay for sending the financial world into a panic and wiping out the savings of millions. (The hunt begins to punish the culprits – Times Online).

Or am I reading too much into these posts!

Related articles

• Lessons of History (behind2ndlook.wordpress.com)
• ‘Helicopter Ben’ May Deter Lending With Lower Rates, Gross Says (businessweek.com)
• Banks snap up €500bn in loans from European Central Bank (guardian.co.uk)
• Trend Alert: Frothy Frocks (fabsugar.com)
• ECB loans highlight funding pressure on eurozone banks (guardian.co.uk)
• Fed battling economic forces beyond its control (bottomline.msnbc.msn.com)
• Fed meeting is focusing on plan to forecast rates (seattletimes.nwsource.com)

Old order changeth …

For the opportunity to make a mark is more at state level, where the administrative unit is small enough for a strong-willed and focused chief minister to be able to make a difference. No one took notice of Nitish Kumar when he was in New Delhi, but he has now made a reputation for himself as chief minister in Bihar, in just 41 months. The same goes for Naveen Patnaik (anyone remember the portfolio he held as a central minister?), who stands tall in Orissa. The examples of Chandrababu Naidu in Andhra Pradesh and Digvijay Singh in Madhya Pradesh have been touted often enough, but there are more contemporary examples too, like Narendra Modi in Gujarat—who has outshone all the BJP leaders in New Delhi who saw themselves as the inheritors after the Vajpayee-Advani era. Vasundhara Raje Scindia had a similar opportunity in Rajasthan, but she muffed it. Now there is growing recognition of Shivraj Singh Chauhan in Madhya Pradesh and Raman Singh in Chattisgarh. Even Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee was beginning to acquire star value, till Nandigram and Singur happened. (via Business-Standard).

Smooth ride ...?

Midnight’s children

Interesting editorial.

It brings out one interesting development. LK Advani (?) and Manmohan Singh are possibly going to be the last colonial-era Prime Ministers of India. The next generation of political leaders will be Indians who have grown in the post colonial India.

Colonialism is hearsay, propaganda, exaggerations – a second hand experience, to most young post-colonial Indians. Brought up on a diet of nation building, socialism, (opportunistic) English education, limited exposure to the rest of the world, they have seen rapid change. From an India, which was a ship-to-mouth basket case, to an emerging power, seems to be have been a facile and an easy experience – with little credit being given to Indian political leadership for managing the post-colonial Indian system.

The One Solution to all problems

In the immediate post-colonial India, for every problem, there were two common remarks. One, “The Government should do something about this.” The second was, “It is not like this in foreign countries.” Whether it was overflowing drain or a pothole on the road. Looking back, things have changed.

Over the years, Indians use this phrase less and less. These phrases are now close to becoming either extinct or may even become a parody. It may make its way into Indian films as a joke.

Success … hubris …caution

On one side it makes them brash – but more dangerously, it makes them see the future simplistically, as a case of just adopting or modifying the Western model to suit Indian requirements. This is in itself may not objectionable, but for the fact, that most of the new leaders have been fed on a staple diet of Western propaganda – where the elephants in the Western rooms have become all but invisible. Don’t believe me – look at Chidambaram saying that he wants to end 5000 years of Indian poverty.

Recycling end-of-life Western models

Elephants in the room

Western models, which have evolved through the prism of slavery, colonialism, genocide, concentration of power are an end-of-life model. To use end-of-life products may seem like a low cost solution in the short run. The bigger issue in most cases is the  lock-in effect that these legacy systems impose on the ‘buyers’ – e.g. Singapore.

This, then may become the biggest risk in the future – the mute and blind acceptance of ‘dominant’ Western models. Aiding this risk is the English language education, which is one such legacy system, which has locked India into a high cost spiral of adopting decrepit Western models with decreasing returns.

India’s successes have been built on Indian models – and Western models have been singularly unsuccessful.

How will India’s young leader’s face up to this challenge? Will they ‘fall into the trap’ of copying successful countries or take the easier path of renewing the Indic model, which may initially, seem difficult.

The Pakistan conundrum

This may soon come to pass ...

I had asked this of a former high-ranking defence official in the Clinton administration at a conference at Harvard in late 2001. Without blinking an eyelid he said, “We would help the Indians take out the nuclear arms.” After the US intelligence failures in Iraq, I would not be too sanguine about this possibility. I would be more confident if Mossad makes a similar offer! In any case, I do hope our security analysts have an answer to this question, and that the ongoing elections yield a government which is able and willing to deal with what is no longer an implausible existential threat to India. (via Deepak Lal: The Pakistan conundrum).

Deepak … Deepak … Deepak …

Deepak Lal (currently employed with a US University) feels rather reassured by the US generals who have promised assistance to India for taking out Pakistani nukes in the likely event of Pakistan falling to Taliban hands. He truthfully, admits that he would be happy, if the Mossad were to give him such an assurance.

The tragedy of Indian bureaucrats

Do the IFS types understand the ramifications of a ‘relationship’ with a state like Israel, which is a proxy for the Western Oil interests in the Middle East. The only logic for Israeli policy is the probable Israeli intention. Is it that they are not staying in the neighbourhood after (or when, if you prefer) American aid ceases? Israelis, mostly transplanted Jews from Europe, will just get up and go, after Western support for their destructive regime ends.

The State of Israel will last as long as oil prices are high in the Middle East. What happens when Indian oil demand stabilizes with increasing domestic production? What will happen to oil prices production after Cuban oil fields go into production? And the Caspian oil and the Central Asian oil comes into the market?

Indian disengagement with neighbours

While Deepak Lal and his ilk from the Indian Foreign Service are busy attending conferences and gab-fests in the US, what is their level of engagement with Islamabad? How much are they in touch with the Pakistani establishment on managing this real ‘risk’ – and its fallout!

More importantly, how many such meetings and conferences do Deepak Lal and his ilk attend in Beijing. After all, China is the patron-in-chief of the Pakistani defense establishment – or at least, the invisible half of the equation, along with the USA. Any solution in Pakistan will come with Chinese support and consensus. With each new hand of cards, after each round of the play, the Chinese hand only gets stronger – and the Western hand is getting weaker.

A foreign affairs columnist, writing for financial daily, Jyoti Malhotra says,

How should Delhi treat its smaller and economically weak neighbours? There are many answers to that, but one thought remains central. The rest of the world will never take India seriously until it is able to bring the rest of South Asia on its side. Going out of your way to be nice to old friends could be one way of doing it.

India’s preoccupation with the West comes at a cost. For instance, of improving intra-Third World trade, which will yield more benefits than the Doha round. Intra-Third World trade is more stable is less prone to non-tariff barrier tactics that the Western world usually resorts to. Instead of a Doha round, there could be a Third World trade round.

The IFS and the IAS carry a colonial hangover – and their entire frame of reference is based on Western discourse. And this has to end.

What irony …

Of course, Deepak Lal sees no irony in India needing Mossad assistance, assurances and comfort – to tackle problems at Indian doorstep.For Mossad Pakistan half a continent away.

The Fake IPL Blogger – A Quicktake

Is it Sourav Ganguly the blogger?

Last night some senior players met with the management to discuss this blog. Apparently, some Bengali journalist heard about this blog from his friend in India. The news spread fast amongst the journalistic circles. Initially, they suspected someone within their fraternity to be doing so. Some of the stuff written on the blog seemed to match the grapevine that they had heard too. One of them went and asked one senior player about it. Who, apparently, asked “Eyi Blog Maane Kee?”.

This is the most amusing blog I have read in a long time! There is not one cricketing insight in the entire blog. Sports media has been giving the blog extensive coverage - especially the Britsh media.

This seems like a blog by a PR man – who loves his Hinglish, who is has a free run amongst the players, who gets to hear all the ‘inside’ stories, has some practice with copy-writing. Cricketer he is not!

As for the blog, it is …

Some IPL Cartoons

Original

Especially the names for all the players.

Lordie is Saurav Ganguly. Kaan Moolo, (consensus is that he is Ajit Agarkar) the former India fast bowler comes in for some very interesting descriptions. Greg Chappel is Hawai Chappal – named for his talking airily about strategy – and coming up with nothing. The Sheikh of Tweak is Shane Warne. Bhooka Naan is Buchanan. Dildo is Shahrukh Khan – a play on dil in Hindi meaning heart.

My three favourite characters – Appam Chutiya is Sreesanth. Sheegra Patan (meaning premature ejaculation in Hindi) is a good pun on Sheegra Pathan – meaning Yousuf Pathan. The best, of course, was the Baja of Baroda – meaning Anshuman Gaekwad.

I could not make out who the Junta Tormentor or the Stylebhai was! But then this page de-constructed the names – to some extent. Kishen Kanhaiyya is supposed to be Ravi Shastri. Stylebhai is supposed to be Murali Karthik – whose fashion sense never seemingly deserted him. Ganji Hanger, supposedly, Sanjay Bangar was a superb one. And Janta Tormentor is supposedly, Ajanta Mendis. And Mangal Pandey is probably Laxmi Ratan Shukla. And Gilli Danda is Ashok Dinda.

The Phoren babas (McCullum & Buchanan) was a neat semantic trick.

Caution – Explicit Language

Kaan Moloo

One of the most interesting characters in this blog, Kaan Moloo comes in for some special attention. A gem was one on Kaan Moloo – when Coachie was talking to Kaan Moolo.

I sat down and started nibbling on my toast. Overhearing them, I figured that Kaan Moolo has had his kaan moolo’d and is out of the Playing 11. Coachie was explaining to him reasons for why he is being left out. Let me summarize Coachie’s 5-minute monologue to Kaan Moolo. He essentially said that Kaan Moolo has a bright future, he just needs to work on his game a little bit. Basically, all he needs to do is improve his bowling, batting and fielding. That’s it. And he’s back in the team. Little does Coachie know that the exact same words have been spoken by each of Kaan Moolo’s coaches since 1998 – The Baja of Baroda said that, as did John Wrong after him, as did Havaii Chappal subsequently. What makes Coachie think that at the ripe young age of 32, Kaan Moolo would finally turn over a new leaf.

His secret fantasy -

I want to plug in my set top box into Kaan Moolo’s ass and see if his ears catch the Tata Sky signals.

More on Kaan moloo

I wonder how Kaan Moolo improved his cricket so fast to make yet another comeback. I have a feeling, he would be making comebacks even when my grand children are watching cricket.

Kaan Molloo makes a return in a later post …

Kaan Moolo was particularly upset after yesterday’s loss. He knows this was his last attempt at redemption, last chance to correct the 10 years of torture he has inflicted on Indian fans.

IPL Cartoons

‘Appam’ progresses to become more famous than the Dosa

His characterization of ‘Appam’ (most people guess it is Sreesanth) has assumed 15 seconds of fame proportions.  With some secret ‘inside’ news on Appam -

Learnt a very interesting piece of news. Not sure if it’s true or not. Apparently, Appam Chutiya wasn’t slapped by Meera Bhai during last yr’s tournament. He was crying because his team owner Babli hugged everyone after the match other than him. The Prince of Patiala saw an opportunity to take Meera Bhai out of the equation and accused him of slapping Appam. I think Appam is still waiting for that hug.

His “Appam” saga continues … and Cool Dude (popularly believed to be Mahendra Singh Dhoni) makes an appearance …

as they say in English, “Form is temporary, class is permanent”. Or, as they say in Hindi “Appam ka Samay aur Chutiya hamesha kat-ta hai”. Appam’s done it again. First, he messes with a guy twice his size who has just belted him for sixes & fours, and then he goes to Cool Dude asking about his chances of making it to the T20 WC team if the main bowler doesn’t recover in time. Cool Dude just laughed it off saying that he doesn’t plan on visiting the match referee during the T20 WC.

Appam has become famous! And he doesn’t like it …! Not one bit … kyonki impression jaldi ban gaya hai …

Appam has confessed to his close confidantes that he isn’t quite enjoying his new internet stardom. And the fact that his teammates and even the public in SA is calling him Appam is hurting him a lot. He is blaming this blog …

On Appam and dosa … was a complete beaut …

The Prince is quite pissed with Appam. He’s been trying to tell Appam to reduce his attitude and improve his bowling. I have heard that nothing pisses off Appam more these days than someone calling him by his new name – Appam. Apparently, Big Mac had called him just that during change of overs the other day. And Cool Dude, who was batting with Mac at the time, had a huge grin on his face when he heard him say so. Prince hit him exactly where it hurts by saying, “Attitude toh poora masala dosa ka deta hai, aur bowling Appam jaisa karta hai”. When the boss cracks a joke, you got to roll on the floor with laughter. The whole team was in splits after that comment, although Appam wasn’t quite amused. Probably he doesn’t like people calling him only by his first name.

Of course, FIP, also competes with Charles Darwin … with his theory on the evolution of Appam …

Appam Chutiya has started bowling in the nets and seems to be getting to match fitness. I think he may be back soon. So, all the best guys. Surprisingly though, he was quite well behaved, hardly ever acted himself at the nets. It’s amazing how each IPL season Appam seems to leapfrog a few stages of the evolution cycle. Last year, with just one tight slap he suddenly evolved from being an Ape to a Neanderthal. And the run-in with Re-Peter seems to have magically brought him to the Cave Man stage. If someone were to meet him for the first time today, he could almost mistake Appam to be a normal human being.

And his potshots at Appam continue …

Talking about Appam Chutiya, the single-biggest contribution of this blog to humanity has been the reformation of Appam Chutiya. For the last week or so, he has been at his best behaviour since the time he was punished in school for pissing on the plants. My congratulations to all those who’ve made his name such a cult. In the last match, even the crowd in SA was calling him Appam.

‘Coachie’ Bhookha Naan

The other character who is ‘flesh and blood’ is Bhookha Naan (rhymes with a certain John Buchanan, earlier coach of Team Australia, now with the KKR). On the Coachie brilliance in strategy

He has come up with the most innovative strategy ever for tomorrow’s match. Tomorrow, we will aproach our innings very ingenously. If we lose an early wicket or two during powerplay, we will consolidate the inning rather than go for maximum. Man, nobody ever thought this before.

Some more on the coach

Coach hasn’t spoken to anyone since last night’s defeat. He was on his laptop the entire time that I have seen him today. I think he wants to send his laptop in to bat in the next time, given the amount of time he spends with it. May be if he spent half that time with us players, we may win a match or two.

His observations on the way some players (Akash Chopra and Sanjay Bangar) were used by Bhookha …

I have new found respect for Bhookha Naan and his coterie of ill advisors. I mean, their insight into the game is par excellence. They can see things that us mortals just can’t. To begin with they select Shakespeare and Ganji Hanger for a T20 tournament. That itself was genius. And then they sack them after just one inning each. Being the ignorant fool that I am, I thought they played just as all of us had always expected them too.

But, I think Bhookha must have seen something that we couldn’t and suddenly realised that they do not fit in. I wish I could fall at their feet and pray for enlightenment. Tell me, Oh my Master, what did you see in those 2 innings that you hadn’t known all along? What startling revelation was caught by only your eyes and nobody else’s? Tell me, please tell me, your enlightened soul, how do I see things beyond what is obvious?

And one incident of “water polo in the swimming pool” stands out … when Bhooka Naan decides to ‘go’ for the players …

Post lunch, most of us were in and around the pool. 8 of the guys, including the skipper, were playing water polo, 4-a-side. Others, including Bhookha and some of his buddies, were sitting around drinking beer. When the guys called the water polo match off, the score read 11-11. Bhookha, in his warped sense of humour, remarked that even in this game we couldn’t win. Skipper, who’s been seething in anger for the last couple of days, quickly retorted saying, “We’re lucky you aren’t the coach here ‘coz then we’d have definitely lost”. Not sure whether that was really funny, but everyone in and around the pool broke out in loud laughter. Not just that, we were guffawing for a good 2 minutes. Bhookha’s face, already tanned red, seemed to be turning into a strange shade of purple.

Player and team relations - Bahut ‘palitics’ hai …

On the supposed showdown between Sourav and the Team Rulers on the Fake Blogger

Phoren Babas think that Lordie is Fake IPL. Apparently, he was called into the CEO’s room where Dildo, Coachie, and Skipper, politely asked him about it. But, they forget that this is THE LORD OF THE RING they are dealing with. The man who has punched every possible cricket establishment in the face and continues to live by his own rules. Lordie would have nothing of it and walked off in a huff using the choicest words possible.

Modi decides to host IPL abroad

With how ‘Bhooka naan’ is writing a report to Saala Slimeball (purportedly Lalit Modi) …

Bhookha and Durbaan are writing a detailed Memo that they’ll send to Saala Slimeball and his technical committee for next yr’s competition. One of the points being allowing more foreigners in the side. Other points include removal of the icon player concept from next yr itself, reduction of strategy time break, higher level of media gagging, and removal of biased commentators who influence public opinion.

His take on talks on bringing on Steve Waugh as the new Messiah …

Talks are on with another former Aussie player with very close ties with our city even as I write this. It seems bringing him on board will help assuage public anger. Also, Sticky has backed the idea of bringing him on. Which also means that Lordie may have no role to play next yr given his own relations (or the lack of it) with the new Messiah being brought in.

As for the team morale in KKR camp now …we are the happiest team in the tournament right now. We don’t have any more flights to catch as we continue to stay put. We don’t face any performance pressures like other teams do. The Phoren Babas are keeping their mouths shut given all the revelations. There are no more compulsory training sessions. This is now like a paid holiday. And the brightest part of our defeats? Dildo continues to stay in India.

We get to know how press conferences are becoming a source of friction between the Phoren Babas …

After the match, Skipper had a heated discussion with Bhookha. He made it clear that he isn’t going to the press conference alone. Bhookha was of the view that he is neither the coach nor the captain and has no reason to meet the press. It’s a captain’s job and the captain needs to do it. As they say, success has many fathers and failure is an orphan. The altercation was way beyond Boy George’s diplomatic skills. A quick call was made to Dildo and Bhookha was told to accompany Skipper to the press conference.

On how a certain commentator Kameez Pajama (configured as Rameez Raja) was given a brush off … by Sandy Maddy Babe …

Kameez Pajama, the late joinee in the commentators box, is desperately trying to make up for lost time. His first evening itself, right after his first match, he started acting fresh with Sandy Baddy Babe. Now Sandy’s an old hat at this shit. And she knew exactly how to put Kameez in his own Pajama. She gave her widest smile and said, “Pajama dear, I wouldn’t have gone out with you even when you were a player. You have high hopes of taking me out when you are just a commentator”.

His description of his team

The other good thing about the IPL is that I can see all these big shots from pretty close range. My team has a superstar captain…err sorry… ex-captain. We have a megalomaniac as our owner. Our coach comes with loads of attitude and baggage. Some of our international players are interesting characters.

And then another beauty – a description of Bangalore players hanging loose (under the yes of Kevin Pietersen)

All the usual suspects were there. Bevdaa was there under the watchful eyes of Peter Ka Beta. They weren’t exactly in high spirits. Neither would you if you’d just had a cork opener stuck in yous ass by your boss, reminding you that every run you scored so far has cost him $250,000.

How bad team selections are doing the team in .. and Lordie is not being consulted …

So far Bangla hasn’t questioned Bhookha on his exclusion and the rest of us aren’t authorised to ask. Lordie, the only guy who can question if he wants to, doesn’t really care any more and has absolutely nothing to say in team meetings or training sessions. He is just going through the drills. And outside of the ground, he hangs around with his old pals in other teams

All in all … good fun!

Only one thing .. not a word about Mahendra Singh Dhoni! Till we reach some post number 16 … or 17 … or so …

PS – I am informed that Sanjay Bangar is an adept blogger – who did a stint in blogging (with cricinfo?).

Part II – Update on 15/5/2009

The Fake IPL Player Blog has possibly (my feeling) been the biggest blog – which is not a celeb blog. This ‘fake’ continues …

The writer has introduced a poll which believes that the blogger is “Journo with inside info”. He also informs us about the ‘racism’ by the ‘Phoren Babas’, who swore at Kaan Mollo as “You Indian” … I cant see what the issue with that was? He should have replied back,“Yes .. You Australian … You wanna talk … ?”

Late last night, we were asked uh..actually requested… to assemble. All the Phoren Babas were there too. And they all spoke about how highly they regard India and India’s culture. They apologised for anything that may have been said in the heat of the moment. They said that they didn’t mean any harm and had nothing but absolute respect for everyone in the team. You know what, most of the Phoren Babas are nice and friendly. It’s just a small, tiny group that sucks. Unfortunately, they stick to Bhookha like some strange extensions of his male anatomy, and hence are very influential in the scheme of things. Btw, Dildo is in touch with Slimeball on the issue and there’s an attempt to hush up the matter.

The names are a major attraction on this blog. E.g. Chikna Pussy (reputedly David Hussey) and two new characters have made an entry.Chirkut Teli (aka Viraat Kohli) Chinnu Popli (opinion is divided, but those who know better than me think he is Bharat Chipli) – who were out to ‘score’ …

our gang of losers also went looking for Big Game, trying their luck in several different nightspots. But each and every one of them returned empty handed. Quite predictable, I thought. Imagine a group comprising Gilli Danda, Buddhiman Baba and Bubaan hitting on hot white chicks. My respect for South African girls has actually gone up a bit. At least, they know a bunch of losers when they see one.

Continuing on ‘pick-up’ in another post ..Dhakkans’ middle order batsman, Ghati Baba, was busy practicing his pick-up & throw skills with 2 of their cheerleaders.It was Castro’s last night here and he sure was making it count. Being the class act that he is, even off the field he seemed to be aiming at the block-hole.

And another nasty swipe at ‘Dildo’ for his dancing at Indian marriages …

Dildo’s informed Boy George that he wants to be with the team for the last 2-3 matches. Looks like the marriage season in India is soon getting over.

Even underwear is not below his radar .. where he takes off on

If dropping catches wasn’t embarassing enough, our young boy Bubaan not only dropped a catch, he also showed half the stadium behind us his white cotton ‘andar ki baat’ while doing so. Dildo is furious at this gross indecent exposure. He feels this one act of negligence has caused more harm to our reputation than all our defeats put together. What’s the point of spending so much money on designer jerseys if players wear their nadavalas under them? We have been told that, as per Dildo’s orders, each of us will get 500 Rands to buy better looking jockeys. Good news for all of us, with the exception of Buddhiman Baba who is now a nervous wreck. He has been informed that in all of Africa they don’t make jockeys his size.

Some more …