Become official Royal Challengers Bangalore blogger!

At Doosra, we don't do charity. It's better left to a politician's spouse, retired bureaucrats and shrewd corporates.

But you have to make exception at times when the issue concerns the entire blogosphere. And this is surely the first of its kind, at least in this part of the globe.

To get to the nub, Royal Challengers Bangalore is hiring Chief Blogger -- apart from Chief Photographer and Chief Motivator -- for Champions League.

So if you consider yourself a wordsmith and fancy travelling with the team, just have a go at it.

Who knows maybe you'd be dining with Anil Kumble, sharing a (health) drink with Rahul Dravid and even hobnobbing with Katrina Kaif!

The last obviously at your own risk. RCB has made it clear they won't be responsible for any loss of limb or life for any act of indiscretion on your part.

Details are at the RCB website www.royalchallengers.com.

Remember, your deadline is Saturday, midnight September 20th.

Fake IPL Player is passe. Become real IPL blogger.

The IPL animal farm and an African safari

Lalit Modi visited the Kruger National Park. Big deal. I visited the Rhino and Lion Nature Reserve, roughly 40 km north-west of Johannesburg, more or less at the same time. And like him, I returned to tell the tale.

Modi had the chutzpah to post the vlog (video blog, for the uninitiated) of his African safari on the official IPL website! A lesser freeloader, I’ve got a blog of my own for that.

Cutting out the crap, IPL was the recurring theme in my mind during my African safari, and even when I was roaming around in the streets of Johannesburg, armed with my camera.

My skills, or rather lack of it, with the camera may not give even a Chunky Pandey, let alone Mike Pandey, a good run for money but if Modi doesn't care, so do I.



Pix 1: Sheepskin Sleepers at J’burg flea market. Shopkeepers vouched supply was directly proportional to the KKR fleecing in IPL.



Pix 2: A foodstall banner outside Wanderers taken way too seriously by some batsmen.



Pix 3: Where Jesse Ryder would invariably be spotted banging his head against wall, demanding extension of the happy hours.



Pix 4. Scientific evidence of how KKR inaction...KKR in action, I meant...can be the answer to insomnia.



Pix 5. Kishen Kanhaiya of Fake IPL Player fame. My guide gave this startling piece of information that male Ostrich's thigh turns pink when it's ready for mating. Quite a sensible thing. Since it allows she-Ostriches to either steer clear or get close to the male. A similar system in human society would have been handy. Indeed, the human superiority blabbering is nothing but vainglory.



Pix 6. Rhino Dada. You need a hide like his to cop so much of humiliation and still hang around.

Finally a video. May look like the future of some of the IPL franchisee owners but actually Zulu dancers!

EXCLUSIVE: Chris Gayle’s parting speech at KKR camp

Let’s face it, we ah in a cool hole maan. I sniff there is a Babylon* in KKR and I donno who’s the bloody bald-head*.

I come from Jam Down* all upful* for some jamming but kiss my neck*! We dug a hole for us and we no more ah the Mr Mention*!

You Johnnie and your effing ideas! Chuck that bean maan and get a new one. I’m sure the nurse had bounced you on your bean soon afta' yoh birth and the floor cracked.

And that multiple-fathahood idea stinks too. So stay away from my dawta*.

Yu Brendon the brain-dead. Skip skipping skippie. Just nowt your mug of Tui. A Rastafarian has more dawta* than runs you scored.

And for Jah’s* sake, get rid of those vulgah tattoos. If can’t, get rid of that arm awltogetha’, maan. You can’t baat worse, can you? You can then win maatches single-handedly maan!

Awnestly, it looks awful, jus’ like graffiti in a wall in Kolkata. I wonda’ no maan came and relieved himself on it yet!

Here you Dinda. Get a life maan and chuck that Bandu*. In Jam Dung*, only women weah that. Dennis Lillee bowled with headband but thaat was in last millennium. You no Lillee and this is no 20th century. Buy a time machine with the bucks you got and join us next year, you Bhuttu*.

Murli, stop being a Bobo*. Loosen that obnoxious snake-around-neck, or you’ll asphyxiate yourself, ovastan * you Bubu*?

Finally, Um happy that the Battybwoy* boss is not around. Him a fish*! The other day he tried to kiss me in the corridoh. I collared the bugga’ and he squeaked he wanted to see if the coloh sticks!

And I-Man* don’ like when he screams Gay-le, Gay-le when he sees me. I’m fine being Chris. Jah guide * maan, may Jah bless you.

(Pix: PA)
P.S. Considering Gayle’s speech had a generous sprinkling of Rastafarian mumbo-jumbos, Doosra offers a glossary:
Babylon: Negativity of a system;
Bald-head: Person involved in Babylon;
Jam Down/Dung: Jamaica;
Upful: Positive;
Kiss my neck: Expression of wonder;
Mr Mention: Talk of the town;
Dawta: Girl friend/woman;
Jah: Lord;
Bandu: Hair band;
Bhuttu/Bobo: Fool;
Ovastan: Understand;
Battybwoy/Fish: Gay;
Jah guide: Rasta farewell;

In pursuit of the Fake IPL Player

At times, you have to shrug off inertia, wriggle yourself out of the comfort of your lair and even if reluctantly, respond to the call of the world.

And this was no fiddle-faddle after all.

The hitherto unflappable Barack Obama had grown fidgety; passer byes vouched there was a blood-curdling upheaval in Jade Goody’s grave in the Epping Forest; and even the stony Tiger Woods had started waggling!

It was as if the sky had dropped, hanging like a glass ceiling just above the head of a claustrophobe world which is struggling to breath in an air thick with suspense.

Who is this Fake IPL Player raking all the KKR muck?

My first suspect was Aamir Khan’s dog, which apparently shares its name with Shah Rukh Khan. Maybe spurred by its owner, the canine was out to deface...I mean defame...his namesake.

Dog running blog!

Well, YouTube is infested with videos of dogs using iPods. Trust me, some of them are more techno-savvy than most of us.

And there is a plausible explanation of the dog’s access to KKR dressing room dopes as well. Possibly it was his Colonial Cousin in SA, that same black mongrel which interrupted CSK-MI match, which is supplying him the fodder for thought!

So I ventured to get it from the horse’s...I mean dog’s...mouth but was stopped at the gate by Aamir himself.

“Have you voted? Show me your finger. Hey, what do you think of yourself, Greg Chappell? This is no Kolkata either. Show me the other one.”

Satisfied, he let me in and I politely asked the canine “Are you the Fake IPL Player?”

“Grrrrrrrrr.”

I asked Aamir to decode it but the Dr Dolittle did little other than leaving me with a muddier mind.

“From the angle of his erect ears and tail and the thickness of the saliva dripping from his quadrilateral tongue and considering the fact that he has been starving for the last three days...”

Before he had finished, I showed him a clean pair of heels and was back on the road, panting and gasping.

“It’s P Chidambaram, silly”. I heard the whisper but couldn’t see anyone in my eyeshot.

Well, not an impossibility altogether. In fact some felt it was PC who straight-drove IPL out of the country.

I sought and surprisingly got an appointment with him! Well, election time is the only time when you have access to the politicians. But his secretary made me do an MF Hussain and take my shoes off before letting me in and PC’s corrugated forehead smoothened only after he had inspected my feet.

“Sir, are you the Fake IPL Player?” I asked timidly.

“Don’t be silly. I’m too busy with election duty. Well, if you suspect someone in the cabinet, it could be Dr Ramadoss.”

Now that was an eye-opener! Indeed, every time SRK smoked, Ramadoss fumed!

“Hello, Dr Ramadoss?”

“Yes, speaking.”

“Sir, are you the Fake IPL Player writing all those dirty stuff about SRK?”

“You nitwit, I would use a log rather than a blog when dealing with that *&%$#@,” he hung up.

Well, I know it doesn't augur well for the world bu I’m afraid, Obama will continue to fidget for some more time.

Pix: Jess Bucchino, ‘The Wizard of Draws’