The Caption Game: “Ini Kamoze”-Edition

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Here Comes the Hotstepper.jpg If it is Monday, then it is time to segue back in to Sepia timepassing gently. After all, you’ve had quite the weekend, I’m sure. Exercise your commenting skillz by playing the caption game! Don’t you know that working out without a proper warm-up isn’t wise? 😉

Many thanks to Paul, who guaranteed we’d be able to play today by sending in this tip (“a great candidate for a caption contest”); if any of you spot similarly interesting, “Brown” photographs, pass them along! This picture accompanied an article, some of which is available after the jump.

So, just what is going on here? I’m sure that a few of you already know (and may have witnessed the spectacle yourselves!), but if you don’t recognize the hotstepping, here’s the relatively-somber caption the L.A. Times gave this image:

A Pakistani guard, left, and an Indian counterpart march during a nightly border-closing ceremony. It’s an elaborate, almost comical, show of martial bravado and chest-puffing that has gone on for nearly 60 years. [LAT]

Not sure how to play? Peep these previous editions of captioning fun: Ondhu, Eradu, Mooru, Naal’ku, Aydhu, Aaru, EyLu…

WAGAH CROSSING, INDIA-PAKISTAN BORDER — If nations rose and fell according to their camp quotient and funny hats, then these rivals would still be locked in a total stalemate.

Who doesn’t love CAMP!

Most every evening for nearly 60 years, a peculiar ritual has unfolded here on what has been one of the world’s hottest borders. As twilight approaches and the gates are about to close between India and Pakistan, the guards on either side face off in an elaborate show of martial bravado and chest-puffing that nonetheless includes that most basic of fraternal gestures: the handshake.
Hundreds of spectators from both countries cheer as their men in uniform strut, goose-step and stamp their feet like impatient bulls. Individual guards on either side break ranks and power-walk toward one another as if to collide head-on, but stop just short of the line dividing their homelands and glower fiercely through their mustaches.

I’m rather anti-facial hair, which makes me a bad Malayalee, but I must say, the final five words of that quote almost make me appreciate a good meesha. 😉

Patriotic songs boom through loudspeakers as the national flags are lowered at exactly the same speed and the gates finally swing shut.

Would that the craptastic filmi dances one has to sit through at every single “community” event were as well-coordinated. If you want to imitate Bollywood, do it properly and don’t be THAT girl who’s constantly two beats behind. Especially during the turns or the dramatic sinking to the floor. It looks awful. Take a lesson from the glowering moustaches, ladkis.

The tightly choreographed ceremony is part colonial pomp, part macho posturing and part Monty Python’s Ministry of Silly Walks. The rowdy tourist crowds eat it up.

If you ask me, there isn’t enough Monty Python in the world. Jai Hind! Er…and…Pakistan.

“Everything was just perfect,” Rajat Kalia, an electrical engineer who lives in Delhi, said after a recent viewing. “It’s impressive.”
It is also, of course, a manifestation of a very real rivalry that has produced three bloody wars since the twin birth of India and Pakistan in 1947.
For half an hour each evening at sunset, the decades of enmity are sublimated in a mostly good-natured, almost comical competition between the men in black, wearing headgear with fantails of the same color (Pakistan); and the men in khaki, whose hats are adorned with scarlet fantails (India).

They set up bleachers for this. They even have MCs to get the crowd hyped. No word on whether anyone does the wave or if either side is subjected to that stupid “right side/left side/who is louder?” game.

…Kalia, the engineer, found the event a good-humored, patriotic bit of fun, a friendly contest between two rival nations over pomp and circumstance. It wasn’t a competition in which national pride and prestige were really on the line.
“If it’s cricket,” he said, “then it’s a completely different feeling.” [LAT]

::

Silly title courtesy of this annoying joint. Like you didn’t know.

199 thoughts on “The Caption Game: “Ini Kamoze”-Edition”

  4. working on a paper is that what kids are callin it these days?

    what else would you call writing a paper? 😛

    also, dammit. i need to stop being addicted to sepia mutiny. i need to study so i can get a good job… and read SM while sitting in my office three years from now.

  5. 7% of the population of Tamilnadu are of Telugu origin and around 30% (maybe more) in Chennai have their mother tongue as Telugu.

    I think the central government of India is planning a linugistic census and there could be many surprises on the number of fluent multi-lingual speakers..

  6. A hentai I-banker is a little disturbing.

    no,no,no. ex-hentai i-banker. this was in high school. wanting high school grls in school uniforms isnt creepy if you are the same age as them…this was a long time ago.

  15. You put your left foot in You put your left foot out And you shake it all about You do the Hokie Pokie and then you turn yourself around That’s what it’s all about…..

    (I know… that’s the most obvious thing that comes to mind!)

  17. as if there is such a thing. I remember, a long time ago, pondering the differences between the Tamizh of my Tam-Bram classmates and that of the fishermen/vendors in Chennai

    ‘Petta tamizh’ is a whole different ballgame from ‘mami Tamizh’. Even when folks speak in English, Petta /Mami influence remains.

  19. also, dammit. i need to stop being addicted to sepia mutiny. i need to study so i can get a good job… and read SM while sitting in my office three years from now.

    thats a cool exapmle of what you call “long term planning” 😛

  20. Even when folks speak in English, Petta /Mami influence remains.

    A Pettai Maami would be even more of a badass person. She’d be exactly like a Pettai Rowdy, but would also make you sit up straight and tell your prayers.

    [Pettai = local area, so Pettai Rowdy in Tamil = Local Dada in Hindi].

  21. khaki uniform : INR 750 ridiculously blingy hat : INR 500 fugly white stirrups : INR 100 being sent to puff chest at wagah with your pakistani counterpart : priceless

  27. Here’s a better Youtube clip of the ceremony itself.

    FANTASTIC. It’s even better than I imagined. Thanks, pingpong!

    Meetup in Wagah, anyone? 🙂

  31. Reenacting a hip-hop classic from A Tribe Called Quest:

    “Can I Kick It?” “Yes you can.” “Can I Kick It?” “Yes, you can.” “Can I Kick It?…”

  33. Now that the thread is exploring some meta-issues, I feel ok about injecting this note.

    This particular “Beating Retreat” ceremony is altogether too hostile and belligerent in tone, and vituperatively aggressive in its intent. It is also quite comical in its delivery, as so many upthread have also noted. Perhaps the comedy defuses some of the tension in the Indo-Pak relationship. I rather feel, however, that the impact is to reinforce the hostility. Even if I grant that there was a time when the ceremony served a purpose, even this purpose, I think it is now time to move beyond it.

    Thankfully, the Indian Government realized that this kind of thing sends the wrong signals when negotiations are on, and a feeling of mutual trust and brother-and-sisterhood is to be cultivated. I think it was a sign of strength, not weakness, that they backed down on doing the more absurdly aggressive of the displays. That they did so also tells us that this particular “Beating Retreat” does indeed have a strong undercurrent of hostility by intention. I’m sorry that it’s now back up to what it was.

    I support the idea of a Peace Museum at Wagah, and hope they replace the present ceremony with a more peaceful “Beating Retreat” like they have in New Delhi after the Republic Day parade, with contingents from both sides in it. Anna, I think that would be really worth watching.

    We can always watch the old ceremonies at Wagah in the youtube clips later, shake our heads, and think how silly it all was.

  34. A Pettai Maami would be even more of a badass person. She’d be exactly like a Pettai Rowdy, but would also make you sit up straight and tell your prayers.

    Shivering in my thongs at the prospect of a Pettai Maami.

  35. also, dammit. i need to stop being addicted to sepia mutiny. i need to study so i can get a good job… and read SM while sitting in my office three years from now. thats a cool exapmle of what you call “long term planning” 😛

    you know us browns. always ahead of game.

  36. 173 From that BBC article on Australian Navy

    Brigadier Andrew Nikolic said the “holistic needs” of service personnel were considered under defence policy.

    ROTFL

  37. Nearly 200 comments and no one linked the pic to Ministry of Silly Walks?

    Imagine documentary voice:

    “Despite India’s efforts to detach itself from decades of colonialism, certain British influences still seep through.”

    Or something like that. Someone else can do it better. ^__^

  39. ak:

    my mother’s family’s telugu is so bastardized to the point that i usually just tell people i speak tamil.
    i’m hoping to one day study it formally
    our telugu is really not telugu (despite my mother’s protests to the contrary).

    I know the Telugu you referring to. It is a different dialect from the mainstream Andhra dialect.

    Inspite of its stray Tamil loan-expressions, I would say you are mistaken in thinking it is a “bastardized” form. If you study formal Telugu grammar, you will realise that the dialect is actually quite close to the grammatical/classical literary form.

  42. I always wondered about the purpose of goose-stepping. It looks tiring and unproductive. Never got it. Thank you Commentators, for enlightening me on the subject.

  43. Chachaji (#183), so long as Pakistan is not backing down, India shouldn’t back down. It’s gotta be mutual or NOTHING. That’s how I feel, anyway. We may have to disagree on this. Indian officials can certainly discuss toning it down with Pakistani officials, and the whole ceremony can be changed or done away with as long as it is done bilaterally. It’s more than ridiculous that the Indian guards should be pressured (by their own Gov’t.) into peaceful non-threatening poses while the Pakistani guards are still doing the hyper-aggressive thing right in their faces. We’re cowing down our own guards now?! What’s next?? Dressing them up as Buddhist monks? With all due respect (and I really do respect you), your views (in this particular instance) are to me typical of the attitudes that have gotten India into so much trouble in the past, and with very few gains to show for it. Please don’t take offense at my words.

  44. Amitabh, thanks for the kind words, and absolutely no offence taken at the difference of opinion. Please, don’t ever hesitate to call me out on any position I might take that you find offensive or unwise. In this case, I think we only disagree on tactics, not final outcomes. No more from me on this, in this thread. Thanks everyone.

  45. They should do a breakdance battle instead of this marching and stomping stuff:

    “Ayyo they’re the pakistani peeps, lets serve em”

  47. Indian to Paki ” yeh, now I see that piece of turd on your sole..Do you see the gum on mine?”

  49. Hell, I’ll take y’all to Wagah any time! It’s even better at the Kasur border 😉 My caption: “Jane Fonda this, bitch!”