IPL hits town… The end of Cricket as we know it?

Living in India for almost a year now, I’ve gotten used to cricket. How could I not? It’s positively everywhere. There’s cricket on TV all day, every day. There are matches in vast arenas and impromptu affairs on the streets and fields in every part of the country. I saw kids playing games in the deserts of Rajasthan and on the banks of the holy river Ganges. I even saw a group of boys in the Himalayan town of Gangtok wack the ball around and that’s dedication for you with streets steep enough to make San Francisco’s look tame.

But in spite of all the cricket there was something missing. You got it. More cricket!

A few weeks ago the Indian Premier League (IPL) launched to much fanfare. They took a page out of the ‘fast guide to ruining your sports by corporate money’-book and decided to go straight to the sell-out. (On the upside, if you ever complained that your own favorite sport is becoming too commercial, you can always catch the IPL to gain some perspective.)

Some examples to prove my point:

• The teams have funky sounding American names. ‘Chennai Super Kings’ or ‘Kolkata Knight Riders’. The latter are symbolised by flaming leg-guards and helmets in a faux-medieaval style. It’s cute.
• Player interviews take place during the game with the help of wireless microphones. It’s quite ingenious, they’ll be asking a fielder one of those inane sporting questions like – How are the conditions out there? – when suddenly a ball whips by and the poor guy tries to chase it down the field. Gee, I wonder why he missed the catch !
• In spite of all the money at stake they couldn’t convince everyone that May was a good time for this whole IPL thing, which means that half the stars will leave the competition in a week or so since they have to go back home and play for Australia. Kinda sad actually…

To be fair the games are pretty enjoyable. It’s Twenty20 after all, the high-scoring, shortest version of the game and it wraps up in a mere 3 hours.

The real killer though is in the broadcasting. I’ve seen quite a bit of commercials in my day – American Idol, anyone? – but the IPL tops it all. I did a quick count. In 5 minutes of watching I saw 3 full length tv ads, 2 half-screen ads that push the actual game aside and come with music and sound effects, and 2 roll-over banners that unfold across the center of the sceen anytime someone hits a big score; they make noise too. On top of that there’s a little 3-d cube ad that flips around every minute or so. In all about 10 ads per 5 minutes, meaning 120 ads per hour or 360 for a full match. And I’m not counting the on-field advertising of course.

Overkill? You might say so. I’ve resorted to switching the sound off for the entire game. I couldn’t be bothered flipping channels anymore and the sound really is the most annoying. I mean after hearing those two brats fighting about the best flavor for their fruit juice (Apple or Orange ??) a few hundred times, you really have to draw the line. By the way, has no one in this league heard of frequency capping?

Anyways, I should wrap this up. There’s a match on. Delhi Daredevils (no sniggering please) vs the Bangalore Royal Challengers. I’m a Deccan Chargers man myself, only managed to win one game so far. Maybe I should buy a shirt before I leave India, hmm.

Playing on the banks of the Ganges – Varanasi

Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent

Surfing on Youtube the other day, I came across a documentary on Noam Chomsky entitled Manufacturing Content. It deals with the way media is used to control the people in modern democracies. Even though it was made more than a decade ago, I was hooked, and I spent the entire weekend going through the 17-part opus.

Chomsky argues that every state needs to control its people. Totalitarian states do so by means of violence, but democracies to a large extent do not have that option. Media, and especially the news media, fill that gap. In more honest times, Chomsky states, this was called propaganda, but nowadays media manipulation goes largely unnoticed by the common man.

If you have the time, this documentary is definitely worth a watch. It’s thought provoking, though I feel that it misses when trying to explain how the process works in practice. In a way the documentary doesn’t explain at all. You are just left with an ominous feeling that somewhere there’s a government offical preparing the day’s news brief for the press. I don’t think that’s correct. The state doesn’t control these matters. Instead, I believe that it is largely self-inflicted.

I can give you an example that deals with reporting during the Iraq War. I happened to be living in Paris at the time and got my news from a mixture of French, US and Dutch sources. On the 6th of April 2003, American F-14s accidentaly bombed a Kurdish convoy, seriously injuring a senior Kurdish commander and killing some 18 others.

The incident was reported in all media. In American broadcasting the event was described as a tragic case of friendly fire and a Kurdish spokesman was quoted as saying that an unfortunate mistake was made, but that these things happen in war. The French press stuck with the same story, but concluded it with an op-ed statement by the reporter that in spite of these conciliatory words, it was obvious that US – Kurdish relations would be strained for quite some time. The Dutch media reported the event and left it at that.

The point is that each news outlet was trying to frame the story in a way that was most appetizing for its own consumers. The Americans optimistic, the French pessismistic, the Dutch neutral. It’s consumer behaviour, advertising eyeballs, that control the media manipulation.

No one forced US viewers to switch to Fox in droves, but they did. The fact of the matter is that we like our news to be sanitized, to be made fair and balanced per our pre-existing beliefs. We go to church and sit in the choir expecting nothing but the usual sermon.

The truth will set you free, but freedom isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be, it seems.

back

Two in the morning and in spite of the late hour the air smells of lingering heat, of bracing summer. An oven briefly switched off. In front of me a sixty-year old man, wearing thick-framed glasses, mutters to his wife to hurry up as she digs through her handbag for the passports. He has one of those loud management books in his hand, “Achieving Success – The Easy 6-Step Program,” or something like that. Indian airports must have the highest density of self-improvement books in the world. Jack Welch and cheap derivatives galore.

Suitcases papered on all sides with a return address fill the arrivals hall. They disappear in the jostling crowd. Outside, the streets are relatively empty as we drive through the western suburbs of the city past nearly completed fly-overs and dimly lit malls. Women appear in the headlights sweeping the road. Dust to dust.

We approach a building about to be demolished and the supervisor forgets to either block traffic or halt work. A fist-sized rock hurtles down and hits the side of the car. We drive on. Not much to do about it anyway.

It’s 2008 and we’re back.

Pluck what now? (From the wonderful world of Indian signs)

Long time no post…

It’s been a while since I last posted. Not because there wasn’t anything going on in my life. (I’ve traveled to the north-eastern states recently, so expect some posts on that briefly.) No, my blogging silence is due a new website I’ve been working on. I spent every waking, post-work, internet hour, polishing up the online presence for a little house I bought in France a few months back and I’m happy to say that it’s up and running.

Right now the site is only available in Dutch – you have to start somewhere after all – but you can still go and take a look at the pretty pics. It’s available for rent as of now :)

Will be back with some new posts soon…

One night in Bangkok

How can you go to Thailand and not immediately think of that song? I went to Bangkok last week and had those lyrics running through my head, at least the few lines I remember: One night in Bangkok makes a hard man humble, and something with despair and ecstasy. It goes well with the madness of the place. I just wikipediad it and the lyrics are actually quite bizar. It’s from a concept album about two chess players and the sordid love triangle they end up in with their female manager. Who knew ?

I don’t see you guys rating
The kind of mate I’m contemplating
I’d let you watch, I would invite you
But the queens we use would not excite you

And no, there’s no double entendre there. But I digress. What I wanted to talk about is not the usual mix of backpackers, fried cockroaches and the way prostitutes work the clubs in packs, always a ‘brother’ present. Maybe I’ll get to that later. I wanted to say something about the wonderful world of Muay Thai or Thai Boxing.

Given the name it’s not surprising that it’s Thailand’s national sport. I saw some matches last Sunday and it’s a fascinating thing. First the fighters come out and perform various ritual prayers, greetings and signs of respect, bowing down deeply. Then they kick the shit out of each other. They do so for 5 rounds at the end of which it’s an utter mystery who won.

Points are awarded for correct and dominating Thai boxing style. I guessed the outcome wrong half the time. You’d think that the guy who was beaten to a bloody pulp for 15 minutes or so is the loser, but you could well be wrong. Points are awarded for defensive style too. It’s confusing. Watch the video below and it seems to be just as confusing to the participants. Can’t tell from their reactions who won.

Two faces of the Taj Mahal

“A teardrop on the face of eternity…”

From Taj Mahal

It really is that beautiful, the semi-translucent marble of the elegant arches and domes overlooking the river, and that oh so tragic story of its creation: A monument built by a heart-broken emperor for his deceased wife. That same emperor imprisoned by his son, the windows from his palace-cell framing the Taj Mahal in the distance his only reprieve for the eight long years until his death.

That is the first face, the public face, but just like some of the other newly elected wonders of the world, it’s not the only one. Like the Pyramids, which border Cairo’s sprawling suburbs, the Taj Mahal only is peaceful and quiet on its own. Walk five feet out of its entrance gates and you’re in the city of Agra, a dusty conglomeration of a million and a half. Congested, crowded and prone to occasional rioting.

In a way it reminds me of the city of Rome, that was so attractive to fin de siecle travelers. That ruined city where shepherds used the Coloseum as stables and merchants plied their trade from Constantine’s Arch. Myabe a hundred years from now Agra will be modernized, the hovels of Taj Ganj torn down, replaced by a glass-encased Visitor’s Center where tourists arriving on the Delhi bullet train will be whisked through an interactive exhibition on their way to the souvenir shop.

Funny Signs – What not to do in India

Guns only please…

The Ballad of Mumbai

Mumbai, Bombay, whatever you’d like to call it: The largest city in the world, slums bigger than anything in Asia, 7.2 of the city’s 18 million people live in them, the size of a small nation, 40% of India’s income spread across a tiny section of the population. Bollywood, the stock exchange, the gateway to India immersed in a sea of people, all intricately linked, both rich and poor

How can you come here and not be shocked into disbelief? The contrasts are more than you can take. You wake up in your nice, western hotel, have a light breakfast, some cereal, a cup of coffee and you venture out into the streets. Several doormen try to guide you to a waiting cab, one of half a dozen hoping to make fifty, maybe a hundred rupees double charging you, but you decide to go for a walk. You turn the corner

into a side street off Bombay Hospital. A waft of garbage, that familiar sun-drenched, rain-drenched rotting smell, and then it’s gone, in its stead a whiff from a street cart, fresh dumpling deep fried. The sidewalks are covered with blue plastic attached to the wall, the other side pulled down by ropes, kept in place by heavy stones. Underneath, bodies sleeping, children, half naked stumble out, rubbing the sleep from their eyes, they stare at you

a few blocks further and you’re in the markets of the Fort area, but it’s still too early, it’s a Sunday, it’s only 9 o’clock and the shutters are down, but the market’s not empty, it’s crowded, the sleeping crowd everywhere they fill the sidewalks, men, women, elderly, children, by the dozen, the hundred, some are cooking over a small fire, others line up for the one drain that’s working, washing their clothed bodies, a little while longer and the supply will be shut down for the remainder of the day

you’re at a loss and you jump into a passing taxi, driving north out of this scene as the city wakes up around you, soon the streets are filled with ox-carts, carts pushed by men, pulled by men, overburdened, chugging along in the morning cool, carrying god knows what. The car takes you away from the alleyways, and soon you hit a street, well-paved, a boulevard, palm trees appear, villas protected by 7-feet walls, shopping centers, Adidas, Nike, Reebok, McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Domino’s, Baskin Robbins. A Mercedes dealership

you stop in front of a traffic light and they approach, hawkers selling gigantic balloons, fake flowers, bootleg copies of a Thousand Splendid Suns, you ignore them, try waving them away. The light hits green, the car lurches forward, stops again, more people come at you, beggars, a boy carrying a baby in a plastic bag, a man with horrific burns all across his chest, a mother her arms covered in scabs: two rupees, please sir, sir, sir, sir, two rupees, sir, an arm enters the window, a hand touches your face and you roll up the window, and as you do it, you hate this city for making you, but what else can you do

ten minutes later and you get out at a Hindu temple, you take off your shoes, and walk bare-feet up the dusty step, surrounded by a gentle mass of human beings, small bowls of flowers and coconuts in their hands, upstairs they are blessed by the priests, everything is calm and serene, as friendly as a crowd can be. Then as you walk down the stairs a drop falls from the suddenly darkened sky, a minute later it’s as if a huge bucket has been emptied over the city, visibility brought down to a few meters, the rain hammers the ground, drowning out all sound, causing torrents in the streets

you hop back in a car, further north along the coast you go, passing slums, malls, more slums, more malls, it never stops, and all through it the rain keeps coming back, slowly tearing down the buildings, rotting the city as it waits by the sea, and yet mumbai has what only a few cities in the world have, a unique energy that you can’t define, but when you visit the city you feel it and remember it and will want to come back for it, until once again you can take no more

Live at the Kerala Snake Boat Race

Each year on the second Saturday of August thousands of tourists from all over India flock down to southern Kerala to see gigantic boats, manned by 120+ oarsmen, compete for the Nehru Trophy. It started off as a small competition between villagers, but has developed into a wild celebration full of singing, dancing and drinking.

We found ourself hemmed in between dozens of ships teeming with spectators (almost all male) for a long day of waterside fun. Enjoy the pictures and if you do, you can find lots more on my webalbum.

Villagers rowing their boat to the start

A boat of the largest class turning in the canal

Two helmsmen trying to keep the boat going straight

A sea of houseboats lines the finish

The party begins next door with strangely Gypsy-sounding tunes

A boat sinks during a qualification run

Kids watching the race (and me) from the water

The crowd gets livelier as the day goes by

Highly targeted advertising for the male onlookers

One of the finals

Too much alcohol for this one. He kept trying to take his clothes off, but the medic is restraining him :-)

As soon as the race finished, everyone scrambled