Part Two: Gama: An Anti-colonial Icon Who Happened to Be History's Greatest Wrestler

In part two of this week's reverse episode, author Shiv Ramdas continues his conversation with Margaret about Gama, the Indian wrestler who never lost.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello, and welcome to Cool People Did Cool Stuff, your
podcast that's sometimes about sports, which I had no idea
what happened when I first started a show about Cool
People Did Cool Stuff. But actually, it turns out is
a major part of Cool People Did Cool Stuff is
the interaction between various types of rebellion and various types
of group athleticism and or sports. So my guest is

(00:27):
Shiv around us. Hi, Shieve, how are you doing.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
I'm doing well. Thank you for having me mic blay
back again.

Speaker 1 (00:33):
Yeah. Yeah, in this day. That's totally a different day
because we don't just record in a row. Why would
someone record for three hours in a row? That's a
really long time. Sophie's our producer. Hi, Sophie, Hi, And.

Speaker 3 (00:47):
I think it was inevitable a sports thing, as your
producer is me and your editor is Ian Johnson.

Speaker 1 (00:54):
Yeah, that's true. Chiv is a science fiction author who
you all can read stories by. I've done it. I
approve of reading shifts stories. And one of the stories
that's not science fiction, even though it has a superhero,
is the story of Gama, which we is going to

(01:15):
mean nothing to you if you don't go back and
listen to part one. But who would do that? Who
would look at an episode that literally says part two
is the first thing in the title and think that's
where I'm going to start, Because it's not where I
would start, because I can't even read comic books because
they're not in order, and I can't do it. I can't.
I have to start at the beginning of things. I

(01:36):
don't know how you all are with this. Can you
go non linearly into stories?

Speaker 2 (01:44):
Not at all?

Speaker 1 (01:45):
He's shaking. Yeah, yeah, it's very.

Speaker 2 (01:48):
Hard for me. But if you listening and you really
don't want to go click the other one because you
like our voices that much, you don't want to be
denied them for a second. For this way, Gama was
cool wrestler, and he did a bunch of cool things.
We let him being part of a group that was
going to London to wrestle. If you want to know

(02:08):
why that's a big deal, then you got to listen
to the previous episode. We're going to pick it up
when he lands in London.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
Let's do it when he does with the others.

Speaker 2 (02:19):
They landed about nineteen ten, and the reception they got
was a lot different than the one they'd been led
to expect, I think because ben.

Speaker 1 (02:29):
Jon was really nice to them and no one was racist.

Speaker 2 (02:32):
Well, I was just talking about the fact that that
actually is contextually true in the sense that they were
Weirdly enough, the reception was in many ways less racist
than you might be led to expect, although obviously it
was Okay, yeah, one weird side effect or some whatever
you want to call it of the whole thing was

(02:52):
like their biggest a lot of their biggest supporters during
this entire trip were conservative magazines and publications, and that
is not how I expect conservative magazines and publications to
react in general too, foreign people arriving in your land irrespective.

Speaker 1 (03:09):
Of m Yeah, and how did that happen?

Speaker 2 (03:14):
R I don't know. I don't actually have a good
explanation for it, like at any level, but it is
what it is, and so I am cut bound to
report it as it was. Okay, okay, So but yeah,
the thing, like, I get the feeling for Benjamin he
was like one of those promoters, Like he had the

(03:34):
hallmark of all truly bad agents and promoters, which is
that he was way better at selling his own clients
on stuff than he wasn't selling the public on his clients.

Speaker 1 (03:47):
Yeah, uh huh.

Speaker 2 (03:48):
Yeah, and although he was actually really much better at
selling his clients on themselves than he was at selling
the public on his clients. Yeah, is perhaps a better
way to put it. So in any case, there were
like no reality because for matches with the Indian Rushes,
so they showed up and they're just like sitting cooling
their heels waiting, you know. They established quarters in a routine,

(04:09):
and they actually took a cook with them from India,
so they were getting their food and everything. That was
like an integral part of the whole deal apparently. So
this went on for so long that Health and Strength
magazine even ran a story on them. It was This
is interesting for those of you who follow professional wrestling.
It was called the Indian Invasion and professional wrestling all right,

(04:34):
so invasion storylines are a big deal. They happen all
the time. Honestly, maybe the first time reference to it
was used to actually like try and sell a match.
So this may have been the birth of the concept
of the invasion storyline in wrestling. And as you'll see,
the hid the Golden Bell. Sorry go ahead, yes, Like
if you want to draw the lines, they're there.

Speaker 1 (04:55):
Oh I do. I don't know if it's real or not,
but I want to draw the line exactly.

Speaker 2 (05:00):
So anyway, so this article by health instance tries to
drum up interest in finding people to like face them
in fights. Like there's a long description of their routine,
in their training, their diet. It makes it the point
that they don't use dumbells or any modern equipment. And
basically everyone who came into contact with their lifestyle and

(05:21):
training and diet was immediately like blown away. Over the years,
it still happens. And part of the article was a
challenge printed there by the Indians to all comers, in
which there was a particular promise by Gama that he
would throw three men of any weight off their feet
in thirty minutes, and if he failed, he would pay

(05:43):
five sovereigns from his own salary to anyone who does
not who he did not. In fact, if anyone could
prove that they arrived and they would deny the chance
to compete against him, he would pay the five from
his own earnings. And hell yeah, So this is actually
like a good example of why Benjamin was basically a
shit promoter, because a good promoter would never have allowed

(06:05):
this to happen because by doing this, what they were
doing is they were kind of intruding a lot into
the world of professional wrestling, which is where you have
challenges of this nature because like people who weren't into
professional wrestling, they generally like conduct the business a little
bit differently. So professional wrestling itself was like in a

(06:25):
fledgling stage in England right now. They had been like
one successful tour with George Hackenschmidt earlier, but like it
was basically like a music hall, show business kind of
thing at this point, right and the Indians and Gama
especially were not here to do anything of that sort.
Like they wanted to like fight people and win like
in genuine fights. They did not care like how good

(06:46):
it was or what the takings were, et cetera, et cetera.
So yeah, for a while, like the only offers they
were getting were like basically to do with matches of
this sort, which they were not doing. So essentially there
was no traction.

Speaker 1 (07:02):
In fact, is that because people were like is that
because people were afraid to fight them because they knew
they would lose, Or is that because people were like, no,
we want to do weird stage stuff because we want
to wear costumes and be like the Americans or like
what's happening.

Speaker 2 (07:16):
Well, at this point, it's like no one's ever heard
of these guys, So like the reputed guys are like,
why should we wrestle these guys who nobody's ever heard of,
Like they've never done anything, And the only guys who
want to wrestle them are the guys who want to
put on a show. And so these guys don't want
to put on a show, they want to like wrestle
the guys who are like champions and so on and
so forth, Like they've basically come here to leave with

(07:39):
the title of best wrestler in the world.

Speaker 1 (07:41):
Yeah, so that's his plan.

Speaker 2 (07:42):
That's how they sell him on going here, is like
you will get to face European champions and prove you
are the greatest in the world. Right, And I'm sure
the fact he had those three draws weighed on it.
But anyway, so to a large extent, like the interest
in the Indians was basically confined to papers, and a
large amount of that was basically to do with their diet, Like, oh,

(08:06):
can let me give you an instance, like Gama's daily
diet has been recorded as the following I'm going to
read this out because I wrote it down because it's
so exceptional. Six chickens are an extract of eleven pounds
of mutton mixed to a quarter pounds of clarified butter,
ten liters of milk, half a liter of fruit juice,
and other ingredients to promote good digestion, pound and a

(08:28):
half of crushed almond paste made into a tonic drink,
and another half a liter of clarified butter. This was
the daily diet.

Speaker 1 (08:39):
You know, And this has gone a long way from
his plant based days.

Speaker 2 (08:42):
Yeah, And it's it's essense like high fat, have protein,
high car yeah, everything, and it basically to train at
that level, you have to do this and yeah, yeah,
his training was the other part that was blowing people away.
Like Percy Longerst was like a writer on boxing especially
but also he was actually big supporter of the Indians
being in and people and trying to like make people

(09:04):
fight them and stuff. And he was a huge fan
of them. And he showed up once to like write
a story and he tells the story of how like
he wanted to talk to Gama, but the manager was
like Gama's just gone out to training, so he's like,
I'll wait, I have half an hour, and everybody starts
laughing at him. So then he apparently goes out to

(09:26):
the field and he sees Gama starting to do these
squads and he's like, at some point, it's like it's
just going on and just going on. So then he
starts timing so that he times it for another twenty minutes.
Then he goes back inside, does an entire conversation with
another journalist, leaves, and he's like, why when I left,
that guy was still going so like, yeah, so Gama

(09:52):
was like known to do some extremely intense thining, Like
I think he used to do his actual like training
routine back in India used to be like used to
do about like four thousand of these a day, about
three thousand of these push ups a day, and then
he used to wrestle thirty other wrestlers every day, like
he do thirty bouts a day or training. This is
daily training.

Speaker 1 (10:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (10:13):
Yeah, as the story goes, Gama has never lost about
in training ever, Like he's literally never lost about all right,
which is pretty intense right anyway, So at this point,
like these writers who are marveling at this kind of
stuff are like the only support they have. In fact,
like John Bull, which is like a pretty conservative magazine,

(10:33):
they were like full on in support of like the
Indian wrestling and so on. Like I still don't understand it.

Speaker 1 (10:39):
Is it because they like wanted the Westerners to like
win and prove something or was it just like we
like manly stuff and let's be honest, these guys are
pretty manly.

Speaker 2 (10:53):
Well I don't because I don't understand it genuinely, because
like they would carry articles about stuff like bemoaning the
lack of opponents and saying shame on you for not
being willing to face these guys and talk, and then
talk about how Gama had like lots of offers to
take part in like you know, take a fall for
money and take part in professional wrestling, and he would
refuse because he refused to understand the concept even Yeah.

(11:15):
And then in this article they also carry like another
challenge from Gama, like ironically yeah, in which he lays
out even higher stakes and he also like started naming
famous wrestlers by name, like Frank Gotch who's American, a
guy called Stanislaw Zibisco who's like a big deal in Europe,
like I think it was Jack. The other people challenged

(11:37):
by Gama in this in this were the world and
in GPS Japanese wrestling, and he vowed that he would
throw thirty Japanese wrestlers in sixty minutes. He also said,
the Japanese champion, I will throw you ten times in
thirty minutes for one hundred bucks a pop. So yeah,

(12:00):
so it was like this. So this time the challenges
seem to have worked because like they started getting some matches,
and they started and they started doing like spectacular stuff
already it's patches. Like so there's this one match against
like the Scottish guy and he's about like fifty six
pounds heavier than Gama, and then apparently Gama they start
like the guy flips him almost immediately. So this guy

(12:21):
decides at that point, look, I'm not gonna win, but
I'm not gonna lose. So what I'll do is like
he has to put my shoulders on my back, my
back down. So she decides to like hug the mat
like this, like face.

Speaker 1 (12:29):
Down, and the Scottish guy does the.

Speaker 2 (12:32):
Scottish guy yeah, okay, crab turtle position whatever. Yeah, And
so Gaba apparently grabs him by the way, he just
flips him around. It's over, so like he doesn't have
any problem like flipping this guy with like fifty six
pounds eaverier than him. Gama's about two hundred pounds. Just yeah,
this guy's about two fifty six. Okay, So this stuff happens,
so like there's a little bit of buzz happening around,

(12:53):
like oh cool cool. Essentially, like what basically happens is
this is what he had done to Gulab, and Gulam
didn't have a count and it happened. So at this
point they actually get one big ticket kind of like opponent,
which is an American his name. This is a wrestler
called Benjamin doc Roller. Now doc Roller is a very

(13:18):
interesting character. We've described a few people as colorful so far,
like and he's up there with all of them. So
he's apparently a real doctor, like he got his degree
in Pennsylvania or something. But he was also really fond
of like wrestling and like American football, and at some
point he decided that breaking bones was more suited to

(13:38):
his temperament than mending them, so he decided to do
this instead. Even though he was a doctor.

Speaker 1 (13:43):
Usually people go the other way.

Speaker 2 (13:45):
Yeah, so apparently fairly good wrestlers, like he's quite renowned
and stuff like that, and public perception England was on
rollers side because he's the established name. Now, in truth,
there was actually a massive gulf between like these wrestlers
and the Indian wrestlers, and the only people really realized it,

(14:05):
like Sporting Life and some of the media, Yeah, like
do you think they wrote about like doing training for
this fight. Like there's a fairly well regarded English wrestler
who got into sort of a scrap and they like,
let's settle it in the ring with essentially the guy
who was considered the weakest of the Indian wrestlers, of
whom Gama was considered the strongest. So these two guys

(14:29):
meet and he's like, the Indian guy won it in
six seconds. Yeah, and then he's like, subsequently, we watched
training the guy who won in six seconds, Gama demolished
that guy in like under two minutes. So like that
is the gulf between like their best and like whatever
our middle.

Speaker 1 (14:47):
No, I mean, because these people are this is all
the age of five. Yeah, that is all they are.
I mean, they are people and they have their motions
and stuff, right, but like they live and breathe this stuff,
and everyone else is like, this is my career. It
is just yeah, it's a massive difference.

Speaker 2 (15:04):
Yeah. Absolutely. Anyway, there's a perception that this fight with
Roller was for something called a John Bull tournament. It's
an error, like John Bull sponsored the fight and put
up a like a prize, but there was like no
belt anything. So I feel like there's a good time
to correct that. It was like a two out of

(15:26):
three falls fight, which basically means you got to pin
your opponent two times, and like whoever gets two pins
out of the three attempts you'll fight in will be
the winner. No stranglehold, no full nelson. There was some
of that, and I think this isn't about August at
this point, where we've reached August of the year twenty
nineteen ten. Okay, at the way, Gama is about two

(15:50):
hundred poundstone. This guy what's his name rollers about two
hundred and I would say thirty five or so pounds.

Speaker 1 (15:58):
Okay, I'm going.

Speaker 2 (15:59):
To and be as brief as I can about the fight.
The record of the fight shows that like the first
pin happened in one minute forty seconds for Gama. But
this actually doesn't point out the fact like he had
two earlier pins within the one minute forty seconds which
were considered out of bounds. So anyway, so after this,

(16:20):
Roller comes back again for the next round, which takes
about nine minutes.

Speaker 1 (16:24):
All right, wow, okay, yeah that's a long time.

Speaker 2 (16:27):
Yeah, so the fight's done in about ten minutes. Like,
and after the fight, Roller was like, I broke my ribs,
which is why in the one of those first two falls,
which is why I couldn't do well.

Speaker 1 (16:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (16:38):
Now this is where it gets interesting because among rollers
many talents was breaking ribs every time he lost it something.
It's like there was a newspaper that once put it
and I'm going to quote here. Doc has broken ribs
in London, Seattle, Philadelphia, and several other seaports, both in
football and in wrestling, and last night honored Ottawa, the

(16:59):
capital of Ontario, by having his slats cracked there.

Speaker 1 (17:04):
So did you grow up with the Probably not. The
middle school kids are very aware and of Marilyn Manson
removing one of his own ribs. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, okay,
this is all I'm thinking about when this guy just
really wants to get rid of his ribs as fast
as possible.

Speaker 2 (17:25):
Yeah. Well, all right, so here's the thing. He did
go to the hospital at Charing Cross after the govern match,
but he had visited hospitals in the past for his
fake ribs, so there's that. However, he did obtain a
doctor's certificate this time, saying his sixth and seventh ribs
oh it, seventh and eighth were cracked.

Speaker 1 (17:46):
So wait, so he's mostly lying about getting his ribs broken,
but Gama actually broke his ribs.

Speaker 2 (17:51):
Well possibly, but I just want to point out he
was like a doctor.

Speaker 1 (17:55):
Oh so probably.

Speaker 2 (17:56):
I'm just saying, all these options are on the table.
You can believe what you choose to believe. Like it is,
I think this is about.

Speaker 1 (18:04):
A good time to believe the Marilyn Manson version.

Speaker 2 (18:07):
Like, I just think this is a good time to
get off this roller coaster. Yeah. And uh, anyway, so
after the end of that match, uh, like literally, I
mean like literally immediately after the end of that match,
a guy emerges from the crowd like shakes gaba By
and congratulates him, and suddenly an announcer calls out that

(18:30):
this stranger is going to be facing Gama soon, Okay,
And it turns out this stranger is the famous Stanislaw Zibisco.

Speaker 1 (18:39):
Oh okay, that's the maybe check guy you mentioned earlier.

Speaker 2 (18:41):
Yeah, is there a check of Polish one of the two? Okay,
I'm not quite sure anyway, Zibisco is one of the
most fascinating characters in maybe European history in a lot
of ways. Like he's essentially he was a strong man
in Poland I think it was a well, either Poland
of Czechoslovak which when it was. And then at some

(19:01):
point he gets into Greco Roman wrestling and he gets
really really good at it, Like he wins a bunch
of like he wins tournaments and stuff. Like he's considered
like the European Greco Roman Champa. He was widely considered
by many people to be the greatest defensive wrestler in
the world. Like, apparently getting Zibisco off his feet was
like basically impossible. It's really or at least really really

(19:23):
hard to do. He there was a whole debate happening
whether it was him or Frank Gotch is the best
wrestler in the world and stuff like that.

Speaker 1 (19:32):
Yeah, like.

Speaker 2 (19:34):
What happens is At some point, Zibisco partners up with
a promoter called Charles Cochran who's like, he's like the
huckster's hustler.

Speaker 1 (19:42):
Really okay, this guy.

Speaker 2 (19:45):
So they decide to do a series of fights in England,
right Greco Roman Champion and stuff. And then at one
of these fights, this Turkish guy shows up whose name
is Kadim Suliman, and Kaim Suliman calls himself the Champion
of the Bosphorus. His father is a wealthy carpet dealer.
He's there with his manager and he's really really rude

(20:06):
to Zubisco and challenges him to a fight. Okay, they
work it out risk you know, there's negotiations for several days.
They meet at the offices of a paper to negotiate it,
break off negotiations. Finally a fight is set. Fight eventually happens,
and it's like it's dogwater. Everyone hates it. It's boring
as hell. Yeah, it's bad. After the fight, someone leaks

(20:30):
to the papers that there is no Korean Suleiman. The
guy who was supposed to be Korean Suliman, son of
Turkish carpet dealer, Champion of the Bosphorus was this Bulgarian wrestler,
which it turns out was in the employee of Zibisco.
His current address was Zibisco's previous address. His bills and

(20:50):
mail were being forwarded to Zibisco's current address.

Speaker 1 (20:54):
So the world of professional wrestling is sneaking hands of
the world of actual wrestling.

Speaker 2 (20:58):
Yeah, well, Charles Cocks, like, you can smell the man
at work here, So that happens right like now. The
reason I'm mentioning all this is I feel like one
of the reasons Zivisco is taking up this challenge from
Gama is I think he wanted to re establish a
little bit of his own credibility because.

Speaker 1 (21:13):
Yeah, because he just he did some bullshit and got caught.

Speaker 2 (21:17):
It is interesting that at later points in his life
Zisco basically became a professional wrestler. He's considered one of
the greatest professional wrestlers all the time. Okay by some
I don't know by some at least. Uh Anyway, So
now what's happening is my aman Ziisco is going to
be facing Grama. But before that, Gama's younger brother we

(21:40):
mentioned name, his name is Imam Bucksh. He has to
face this well, we very well regarded Swiss wrestler called
Johann Lem Okay, I'm now going to challenge myself by
trying to make our conversation about that fight shorter than
the fight. It's going to be hard because the fight
itself was one minute in four seconds. But basically Lim

(22:04):
tried everything he had. He tried the whole hug the
matt thing, and what he did is this covered that
imam box is considered the greatest on the ground wrestler
India has ever produced. And essentially, yeah, so it was over.
So at this point, like the entire buzz around the
visit of these guys has shifted, like your financials are
starting to get what they want because people are starting

(22:25):
to talk about like who's going to beat these guys?

Speaker 1 (22:27):
But you know who else people are talking about? Sorry,
I just have to do this about the twenty minute mark.
The other thing people are talking about is these screaming
deals on screaming supplies. This show is brought to you
by all of the supplies that you need for screaming,

(22:50):
including throat coat, tea and what else doeaming for screaming. Man,
you're going to rescue me with this bit Sophie, you're
gonna whiskey? Are we brought deep by alcohol?

Speaker 3 (23:05):
Are we allowed to be brought I was just saying water, oh, water, Eh.

Speaker 1 (23:11):
Sophie was miming drinking or whiskey. I don't know.

Speaker 3 (23:14):
It depends on who you are.

Speaker 1 (23:17):
With honey in it. That's me when I record for
my metal band, I don't do the screaming. Laura does
the screaming. She just sits there with a thing of
honey and in between takes just downs honey out of
the bear. And that's what we're brought to you by
is long winded advertising breaks like this one. And we're

(23:44):
back and we're not talking about screaming really or are we?

Speaker 2 (23:50):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (23:50):
I'm not the one with the script. Could be a
screaming match. I'm not sure.

Speaker 2 (23:56):
Screaming is appropriate. Because when we left, we were talking
about how they entire buzz had shifted around the Indian
wrestler's visit to London. Yeah, and now people are worrying
about who People in London were worrying about who's going
to beat them. So there was like letters to the
editors and articles still lamenting about how they could not
even find a white man to face them, so on
and so forth. You know, it was like right wing

(24:17):
Twitter before Twitter. Yeah, so that stuff is happening. And
there was one editorial at least about how this was
affecting morale of subjects back in India.

Speaker 1 (24:26):
Hell yeah, yeah, yeah, so that's what I'm there for.

Speaker 2 (24:30):
Huh. So your financials were basically who wanted to like
strike a blow at the heart of vampire and all
that they were getting exactly what they wanted at this point.

Speaker 1 (24:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (24:39):
Anyway, your Zibisco fight looms and on this day John
Bull comes through with two hundred and fifty pounds and
a belt, a belt as well this time.

Speaker 1 (24:48):
Okay, so.

Speaker 2 (24:51):
The fight starts and remember we have now the greatest defensive.

Speaker 1 (24:55):
The Brothers fighter. Yeah, this is the this is this
is Brothers fighting.

Speaker 2 (25:00):
Gama has done.

Speaker 1 (25:01):
It was one minute okay long, you're right. So this
is Kama versus the check guy who's trying to or
polish guy. He's trying to reclaim his reputation.

Speaker 2 (25:10):
Yeah, it's a Bisco. So anyway, this remember and remember
this is the guy who's supposed to one of the
greatest defensive wrestlers in the world, where yeah, you can't
get him off his speech. If you get him off
his feet, you can't pin him that kind of thing.

Speaker 1 (25:21):
Anyway, how long is he last?

Speaker 2 (25:26):
So he's on the ground within the first minute. At
this point he goes back to the turtle technique. Okay,
for some reason, Gama is not able to flip him.
So then what follows is like a real farts for
about like two plus hours where this guy hugged from
that everything like and almost nothing happens, and then like

(25:50):
Gama will do something, the ref will say something, Gama
will stand away, this guy will stay there. And then
every so like maybe like once or twice doing the
whole fight, this guy stood back up. They'd lock up.
Within like a second or two, he'd be back down
and face down.

Speaker 1 (26:03):
Just don the turtle mode again.

Speaker 2 (26:04):
Yeah, yeah, And the crowd was really not enjoying it
at all, like they hated it.

Speaker 1 (26:10):
But I'm enjoying it because I don't have to watch it.
It's just funny.

Speaker 2 (26:14):
Yeah. So anyway, it was declared a draw after two
hours and fifteen.

Speaker 1 (26:19):
Shit, all right, because he can't get unturtled.

Speaker 2 (26:23):
Yes, and so this is the greatest offensive fighter of
all time. This and the three draws against Rahim Sultaniola
are the only non wins of Gama's fighting career. Damn.
All right, so it's a big deal.

Speaker 1 (26:39):
He's very upset he can't beat the turtle.

Speaker 2 (26:44):
So what he said later was like it was a
language issue, like there were certain holes which were barred,
and he was like every time i'd grab him, like
the ref would say something, I was like, oh, maybe
that's an illegal hole, and I'd let go and I
turned off the ref. Yeah. So anyway, and the rematch
was set because the draw was very unsatisfying, and at

(27:04):
the rematch, Zubiscu didn't show up.

Speaker 1 (27:08):
Yeah, I will show up if I had just embarrassed
myself by being a turtle for two hours.

Speaker 2 (27:13):
Yeah. So like Zibiscown, for his part, claims that the
reason he didn't show up is because he didn't get
his promise share of the gate receipts from the first fight.

Speaker 1 (27:22):
Oh okay, okay happen.

Speaker 2 (27:25):
And then he claimed that when the rematch happened, he
wasn't even in the country. But I don't know there
was a rematch and he wasn't there, so like then
choose your destiny. Yeah, anyway, and he of course declared
that in or he didn't declare that in nineteen eleven
I will face Garma there's a rematch, but obviously nineteen
eleven that never really happened.

Speaker 1 (27:44):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (27:45):
Anyway, soon after like all this just as suddenly as
they arrived, the Indian wrestlers, like one day they were
packed up and they were gone back to India. Why
is not super clay. Maybe they got tired of England.
Maybe the benefactor decided that, like you know, the civil
independence movement and stuff was growing, Maybe that was a
better use of his time and money. Then maybe he

(28:07):
thought that the achieved the objective had been achieved. Any case,
the era of like wrestling as the fountainhead or the
sphere tip of like the counterpropaganda movement was pretty much
like drawing to a close at this point. Okay, maybe
for the reasons I have just discussed with you, like
there was like actual active movements happening, and this like

(28:30):
soft method was not needed anymore. Kind of point has
been proved, we believe now people believe now it's time
to take back that kind of thing.

Speaker 1 (28:38):
That makes sense.

Speaker 2 (28:40):
It does leave us with the question, which you've kind
of talked about several times and answered like that what
is really interesting is like this generation of like wrestling
obsessed powerful investors, the investments they made, the old system
that had been like being perfected for like generations and
hundreds of years, right one knowing it, all these combined
to basically give India like the greatest wrestling training system

(29:04):
in the world, which they almost would not have even
known it was the greatest in the world if it
wasn't for like this specific like confluence of circumstances. And
it's just very interesting to think about to me personally,
like as a wrestling nerd.

Speaker 1 (29:17):
Then yeah, who knows. You're saying that the British Empire
was good.

Speaker 2 (29:22):
No, I'm saying the wrestling was good.

Speaker 1 (29:25):
I'm just fucking with you. Sorry.

Speaker 2 (29:28):
So anyway, at this point, like Gama goes back, he's
back in India and he doesn't really have a lot
of opponents left in India. He's basically come back as
like Zaman, which is like world champion but I but
interesting enough, he's still not Indian champion because he hasn't
won that fight. Oh yeah, he's one of those rare
guys who has the world championship but not the Indian championship.

Speaker 1 (29:49):
I mean that kind of tracks with everything you're just
saying about how India was the place that the greatest.

Speaker 2 (29:53):
Yeah yeah, So anyway, so time comes they talk about
like yet another re Actually they got to settle this.
But basically what happens is in the interim, like I
told you, like Gama had a lot of personal tragedies,
and one of them was like he had about five
or six sons and he lost almost all of them
to various elements and illnesses. Yeah yeah, yeah, he was married, Okay,

(30:18):
He's right, Like he was devout Muslim, like you take
time out to do his namas every day. Also, so
at one point, like he was apparently so grief stricken
he didn't speak for weeks and like apparently all that
brought him back is again wrestling, practicing and all that.
So anyway, finally in about nineteen hundred and ten, I
think twelve, like depending on the source you believe, the

(30:40):
fight happened in Alaba, yes way could we you know?
And this time Rayammala had spent his time training with Ramamurti,
who I've mentioned earlier. Remember wrote the Treaties on Physical
Education and went around lecturing for this fight. So for

(31:01):
this fight. When he shows up, he'd like covered himself
in like red ochre dust. So depending on like the
version you read, he's been variously I'm talking about I
hear the giant was about seven feet tall, so he's
been verisedly described as looking like a demon or a
devil when he showed up because he was like covered
in red dust.

Speaker 1 (31:18):
And I wouldn't fuck with a seven foot hand covered
as a general rule.

Speaker 2 (31:24):
Yeah, So at this point the everyone is like fed
up of the draws, So like, you guys are going
to fight. We don't care how long it takes. Nobody
gets to cancel this thing. Yeah, so it went on
for like three hours at one point.

Speaker 1 (31:39):
Reference, I just want to point that out. And I
was a good one next thanks, So what at one
point Raheem actually like ran away and was chased by
Gama around the arena and like back into the ring.
All this shit happens at the end of it, like
when the dust settles, literally, Gama is finally the champion,
like he's finally done it. Like how long how long

(32:01):
did it take from.

Speaker 2 (32:03):
His first So the first time they met was like
what nineteen hundred Oh no, no, I.

Speaker 1 (32:08):
Mean this match three hours, okay, I was switched to
basically yeah, yeah, yeah, I am so.

Speaker 2 (32:17):
At this point, like he's also like the domestic champ,
so like he's basically got nothing left, like so his
fights are basically sporadic at this point. In nineteen sixteen,
he met a guy called Pundit Bidu who was leading
Hindu wrestler, and he crushed him easily so that he
still was that guy. In nineteen eighteen, he passed on
his roostoma in thinking to his brother saying like you
are the champion.

Speaker 1 (32:38):
Now I'm chilling just because he's like bored of it.

Speaker 2 (32:41):
He's like yeah, okay, so he's basically having said that,
Like Imam Baksh is like considered, like as I mentioned
with Glangri, one of the most technically perfect. He's considered
the best ground wrestler ever, and like he proved it
like with a LEMP fight. Like there have been like people,
especially if you want to be an edge lord, like
these circles and these discussions. One very edge lord thing

(33:01):
is to say that is that it is to say
that Immam Bucks should have flipped Zibbi's school. But no,
because like here's the other thing, Like this was going
like eighty pounds or ninety pounds heavier than Gama. Like
trust me, Like doing that to two hundred and fifty
a guy who's fifty pounds more than he was a
lot doing it someone like eighty is like just not possible. Yeah,
it's just anyway. But if you want to be an

(33:24):
edge lord, it's a good way to go. Like it's
like high, it's like high level posting.

Speaker 1 (33:29):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (33:30):
Anyway, So what happens next that's the most note is
that people start talking about the rematch with Zibbis Scoo,
who is his other great rival in his life, because
that's the other time that was the draw. So because
of the draw. So at this point, yes, so the

(33:52):
coming to India, No, that's a good point. The buzz
is about him coming to India. And in about nineteen
twenty seven, the Maraja of Patiala announces that he has
created this match. Zibisco is going to come to India.
He's going to face Garma on his native soil. He's
going to do so in a grand pavilion that the
Maharaja will build, and the pavilion will house eighty thousand people.

Speaker 1 (34:14):
Hell yeah, it's gonna be decorated with turtles because just
to celebrate Batman when he shows up. So in yes,
I finally got shipped a laugh trying Okay, anyway.

Speaker 2 (34:30):
Sorry, I've just been like very focused on like no, no, no, no,
you're doing great.

Speaker 1 (34:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (34:35):
So anyway, in nineteen twenty eight and not twenty seven,
this happens, and it's a it's in an arena which
has forty thousand people, not eighty. But Zibisco does come
and apparently he's got some Is.

Speaker 1 (34:49):
This wild that they're like Normally, when I think of sports,
I think of people kind of stopping around the time
they're in their mid thirties in terms of professional level athletes.
I clear I am an expert in sports, but so
it seems like this is like kind of impressive that
people are continuing to compete at the highest level when

(35:10):
they're he's like forty seven at this point.

Speaker 2 (35:14):
Yeah. So like yes and no in the sense that
like they were probably both past their pride at this point,
honestly speaking, well pasted. And they say fighters never really retired,
They're always coming back for one more fight.

Speaker 1 (35:27):
Yeah no, Muhammadi did that.

Speaker 2 (35:29):
Yeah, I mean I think everyone finds it hard to
like walk away after being really good at something.

Speaker 1 (35:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (35:35):
So anyway, so this fight is happening in nineteen twenty
eight and it's it's basically a who's who of Indian
royalty and everyone. It was like the met Gala, but
from Hahajas and lawabs and stuff like that. Okay, like
they were all there to watch the fight and Zibisco
gets some obscene burst for it and all that. So
the fight began and Mazuna recorded as a fort to

(36:00):
second win for Gama, which is interesting life the universe
and everything that number. But yeah, apparently they grabbed, they
swung around for a bit, there's an angle and it's over,
like it's done. Then there's this massive cries all around
the forty Gamas one India has one. India has one,
and they carried him off on their shoulders on the

(36:21):
victory procession. There's a nawab who gifted him with the
silver mace and basically everyone's delighted. There was like extra
vibe because like you know, he was like considered a
man of the people for like just going off with
the crowd instead of hobnobbing with the maharajas. And like
that fight has had huge cultural impact, like impact at
levels that he wouldn't even think to associate it all

(36:42):
the way to like the early nineteen nineties, Like it
was like almost like standard for like Bollywood villains to
have this white strongman sidekick, and like half of them
have been named Zibisco. That's his only name. He doesn't
have a first team, he does not last name. He's Zibisco.
In the Hollywood movie, the hero will first be up
Zibisco before he beats up the actual villain. It's the procession,

(37:03):
like the order of events. Okay, but like what I'm
saying is like basically and that that is.

Speaker 1 (37:10):
The guy seems like the turtle guy seems nice, Like,
oh he seems.

Speaker 2 (37:14):
Like a realized guy. Yeah, yeah, if you like talked,
if you have actually center, he talks about it like
he really rates Gama very highly, and he clearly the
fight was so quick. Is that he wasn't used to
wrestling on mud and on dirt and he slipped.

Speaker 1 (37:27):
Yeah that makes sense.

Speaker 2 (37:28):
I mean, I like one guy's ribs broke allegedly like
you can you can choose your destiny. I'm gonna keep
saying that. Yeah, it's Mortal Gombat in story form. So anyway,
after this incident happened in Gama's basically become pretty much
like a national treasure, like he's like his national hero

(37:48):
and stuff like that, and which was kind of noted
by this subsequent incident where he wants people to essentially
get free rain rail travel on this section of on
this section of Indian railways, and he sends this challenge
to the government saying that I will stop a moving
train on this on this track, and if I succeed,
you must give everybody free travel. And I dare you

(38:12):
if you do, if you're not afraid, reply with your answer.
And they did not reply. And again there are various sources. Yeah,
one sources that they simply didn't reply. Another sources he
went there on that day to do the stoppage and
they held off trains that day because they were so
afraid of Gama. I mean, if you actually read between
the lines, to me, it looks more like, you know,

(38:34):
they're quite aware of how things work in Indiana, like
if this guy gets run over by a train, we'll
have riots.

Speaker 1 (38:39):
Yeah, yeah, totally.

Speaker 2 (38:40):
Yeah, So they probably that was like the purpose of anything,
but it had it adds to the story right, like, yeah, anyway.

Speaker 1 (38:49):
At this point of sack get people free rail trial traveler.

Speaker 2 (38:53):
Now, no, I don't think it did.

Speaker 1 (38:54):
All right, it's the shot.

Speaker 2 (38:55):
I think the yeah, it was worth a shot, like
he created the buzz and yeah. And anyway, at this
point he's just like basically like mostly training and not
even really fighting. It's like the early nineteen thirties. So
his last fight was this guy called Jesse Peterson who
basically essentially like finished off pretty in good time. And

(39:16):
after this he came up with what is basically called
the Imam Bucks Challenge, which is if you wish to
face me, you have to defeat Imam Buksh my younger brother.
And since nobody ever did defeat Imam burg he basically
meant that Gama at this point had retired without ever retiring.

Speaker 1 (39:33):
Hell yeah, so that's what happens.

Speaker 2 (39:38):
So at this point in the time, he's just like training
and stuff. And at this point his nutrition and diet
come to the attention of this professor who I think
was in Calcutta University of Howda University something. His name
is Professor S. Mazumdar or Majumda depending on the source,
and he was a professor of nutrition who wanted to
go and study and studied the way the pehlvans A

(40:00):
and did their diet, so he went there. In his
interactions he became so fascinated with the whole thing he
gave up on nutrition in Ali and became India's foremost
historian of pelwani wrestling.

Speaker 1 (40:11):
Whoa Okay, almost all of.

Speaker 2 (40:14):
The English writing on the subject are people who have
read Majumdar. He is like the primary source in English
for a lot of this. He's the guy who went
and read Vernacules, Saurces, met people, did this and all that.
And he said as late as the mid nineteen thirties
that Gama is easily the greatest wrestlers in the world.
That he's seen that he was beating all these guys

(40:35):
in practice. No one has actually seen these practices but him,
But that is what happened. Although like this whole enrapturement
with Gama's diet and training is not unique at all, right,
like Bruce Lee later in his life discovered it, and
like he incorporate aspects of Gama's like a workout regimen

(40:56):
and training stuff into his own. So like like God
wanted a bunch of interesting stuff in that sense, like
he inspired Bruce Lee, who we'd never heard of, who
everybody else has.

Speaker 1 (41:06):
But did he use blue Apron? Eh, eh, because he
could have and saved. I don't even think we're sponsored
by Blue Apron, so that's not actually advice.

Speaker 3 (41:25):
Some of our shows are sponsored by HelloFresh.

Speaker 1 (41:28):
Oh okay, well, my cynicism remains, But are not cynically
say that you should listen to the people who gave
us money to let us have you listen to them
talk about stuff. Here's some ads and we're back, and

(41:54):
I'm I think that's the last time I have to
shoehorn in very awkwardly into the middle of a sentence
of yours. Sorry about that, Please continue.

Speaker 2 (42:03):
It's absolutely fine. So we were talking about SO and
Bruce Lee and the diet and stuff like that.

Speaker 1 (42:11):
Yeah, So.

Speaker 2 (42:14):
He's been interesting, like extremely influential evening in circles you
mightn't expect. For instance, he didn't get a Google Doodle
not that long ago.

Speaker 1 (42:24):
Hell yeah, Gama Gama did.

Speaker 2 (42:25):
And what I find really cool about that is, like
I'm going to be like weird Matt snrd for a second,
Like obviously Google is after like the number of Google
you know, yeah yeah, which yeah, like goin and the
fact that like Aman Gama died without knowing what either
of these things ever were just makes him so much
cooler for it.

Speaker 1 (42:45):
Yeah, totally.

Speaker 2 (42:45):
It's like like they cared more about him than he
cared about them.

Speaker 1 (42:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (42:49):
Yeah, anyway, high school level of cool anyway. Okay, So
at this point, like we're getting towards like the nineteen
forties Indian independence, like the movement is getting like towards
its peak, and the World War began, so there was
also that, right, so what would was once considered a

(43:12):
very fringe plan now started to become a reality, which
was like the partition of India and seeing which way
the winds were blowing. You know, he had a bunch
of wealth and property at this time he dicumulated as career,
but Ghama decided he gave away a bunch of it
and he moved to Lahore in Pakistan, and he said,
we wanted to set up a wrestling school there. Okay,
so obviously, but that doesn't really matter what you plan,
because like when partition happened, like everything was put on hold,

(43:36):
like when the salms of the British and the subcontinent,
a renumerated partition of India gets often mentioned, but I
think the truth like magnitude of it has never really
discussed yah in western circles, and I don't want to
spend too much time on it because that would like
require a whole series of podcasts. But in simple terms,
like communities that have lived in how many for like
hundreds of years of being distuted, like entire neighborhoods, just

(43:59):
a line draw between them and now they are two
different countries.

Speaker 1 (44:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (44:03):
The largest first migration in human history is generally reckoned
to being World War Two, which happened over a period
of several years. Number two is Partition, which was completed
from beginning to end in eighteen months.

Speaker 1 (44:16):
Yeah, so it is.

Speaker 2 (44:18):
It was just like a ridiculous amount of displacement and
a lot of refugees, like families were torn in half.
There was also like a whole lot of sectarian religious violence. Yeah,
and honestly, I don't think the subcurrent ive ever seen
like religious violence on this scale ever, like not even
close to before.

Speaker 1 (44:36):
And this is where Gama.

Speaker 2 (44:38):
You know, life filled with great victories and like iconic
moments like scripted perhaps like the most iconic moment of
his whole life. So there's a colony of One of
the interesting reverends of the system that the British left
us is that even today in places like India and Pakistan,
neighborhoods are referred to by residents as colonies are interesting.

Speaker 1 (44:58):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (44:59):
So it's like I'm going home to my colony.

Speaker 1 (45:02):
Like just means the town I'm from.

Speaker 2 (45:05):
No, it literally means the neighborhood in the town you're from.

Speaker 1 (45:08):
Oh shit, okay.

Speaker 2 (45:10):
So like it's it's the equivalent of saying I'm going
back to my neighborhood or my hord or whatever you know. Anyway,
so these guys find out that there's like a place
where which is predominantly Hindu, and it's in the line
of like angry murder mobs. So like Gama vows to
those people that I would protect you. Yeah, he takes

(45:30):
some of his wrestlers and he goes and stands at
the at the mouth of the neighborhood. And then in
due course this crowd comes, you know, like their torches,
angry this, that and the other. Then the.

Speaker 1 (45:42):
Which group is being attacked in which group is doing
the attacking in this particular.

Speaker 2 (45:45):
Way Hindus are being attacked. I think Muslims are doing
the attacking, and Gama himself, a Muslim, is standing.

Speaker 1 (45:51):
Between them, which is fucking rules.

Speaker 2 (45:54):
Yeah. So anyway, so they face off, like this guy
tells Garma to get out of the way. Gama tells
this guy, why don't you get out of the way,
that kind of thing. And anyway, so the leader of
the mob or whatever approaches Gama and like he has
a weapon, so he decides to try and hit kamaway
his weapons. According to some sources it was the sword,

(46:15):
but instead Gama slaps him. Now, depending on which source
you believe, and what I'm telling you has been reported
by like newspapers across the region, including like national newspapers,
So this is the official record of what happened, depending
on which one you believe. When Gama slaps this guy,
he either lost consciousness, died on the spot, or had

(46:36):
his job broken. All the accounts agree. He goes flying.

Speaker 1 (46:41):
Yeah yeah.

Speaker 2 (46:42):
Someone in a mob recognizes Gama and yells us, hey,
that's Gama, and the entire mob flees hell.

Speaker 1 (46:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (46:49):
Okay, Now this scene has been redone in like Bollywood
movies to introduce heroes like for generations since then. Yeah,
but apparently it actually happened.

Speaker 1 (46:59):
But it so it's so good, Like it's such a
good He spent his entire life building this reputation and
it's like becoming a folk hero by dedicating himself to
his craft. And then he the way he used that,
I'm just I really like this part of the story.
The way he like used that was just to literally

(47:21):
save a ton of people's lives in a just very
direct and selfless way. I fucking love it.

Speaker 2 (47:26):
Yeah. Oh, and it gets better because he supposedly escorted
people to save passage like across the border with his wrestlers,
and he used his personal funds to pay for like
transport for people to want to get out safely.

Speaker 1 (47:39):
That fucking rules, yeah, in rules.

Speaker 2 (47:41):
Like the sad part is Gama himself like actually died
in poverty, like yeah, in a government hospital. But like
the other thing about it is like he was like
he actually walked to talk like when you talk about
like the noble warrior among hero Yeah, selfless and like
he actually was that, which is part of why he's
considered so great. Like he genuinely lived that. Yeah, and

(48:03):
probably he and his brother are like the last bastion
we ever saw of that. Honestly, we're a long way
from that now. Like, for instance, like I'd be remiss.
I spent all this time talking about like the nobility
of Indian wrestling, but like the current Wrestling Federation of
India head, a political appointee, has been incredibly accused of
assault by like a lot of wrestlers, non wrestlers women,

(48:26):
and he's being protected by the government. Yeah, so we're
a very long way from the legacy of Gama at
this point. Yeah, but I don't know if you like
speak of that legacy, it seems like a decent time
to like kind of see how do you pass it
and put this way, Like the records and statistics are

(48:47):
like this there is ridiculous, Like they just if you
read them, they do not seem real because they are
just wired like five thousand fights without a defeat. There's
there's a stone that he's supposedly lifted, which is in
the museum in Baroda. It's in the museum and that
stone is about twelve hundred kilos. So apparently there's people
who saw him lift this twelve hundred kilos stone. You know,

(49:09):
like there's newspapers, like extremely reputable national newspapers telling us, yeah,
this dude slapped down a mob. This is a report
of the incident. You know. So you have all this
stuff which peats that seem literally superhuman.

Speaker 1 (49:22):
Yeah, and you have the like all.

Speaker 2 (49:25):
A lot of the stuff of his life is on
the Olympics website. Like these are like reputable sources. These
are often sources who revel in telling us that hey,
your hero is not real. And these are the guys
telling us that hey, Superman's real, this is him.

Speaker 1 (49:39):
Yeah, this one is real. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (49:42):
So the way I have come to understand Gama, like
over the course of my life, from viaging his superhis
a kid to today is like one of two things
is true here. Either he was genuinely like a superhero
did these incredible things, or he was the greatest storyteller
who's like we'll ever see again, who convinced the Olympics Committee,

(50:03):
national newspapers, people who had a vested interest in saying
you're a liar, that he was the real deal. Yeah,
and in that case as a storyteller. In either case,
I think that makes him incredibly cool.

Speaker 1 (50:17):
Yeah. No, I mean, he clearly won a lot of matches.
Whether or not he won five thousand of them, I
don't know, but like that he's the real deal at
the very least in terms of being it seems like
the greatest wrestler that we've ever seen. Whether or not

(50:38):
he lifted a twelve hundred kilogram stone or not, I
don't know. Like he's still the real deal even if
that one particular thing may or may not have happened
or whatever.

Speaker 2 (50:48):
You know, it's it's like even if you're the kind
of person like who's just built up like a reputation
enough that like this mob incident happens, like yeah, even
if it's like entirely fabricated, like someone at that paper
was like if I say Gama did this, it will
be believed. Yeah, and that is it self is an achievement.

(51:10):
Like let's assume the newspaper light, let's just assume the
worst case scenario, newspaper made it up out of hope clubs.
That still means that it was considered credible enough that
this guy would do it, Like I can you name
me someone else that you would do this about? And
people read me like, yeah, this could have happened.

Speaker 1 (51:26):
Yeah now that yeah, live your life in such a
way that if you did, if newspapers accused you of
doing something wildly noble, everyone will believe it.

Speaker 2 (51:37):
Yeah, exactly. So, so one way, the other guy was
a real deal. He did really cool things. Yeah, and
he was pretty cool. So that is my thesis for
why he should be on this podcast.

Speaker 1 (51:52):
All right, Well, secretly we've been recording the whole time.

Speaker 2 (51:56):
Ah wait, I don't have to come back and do
this again.

Speaker 1 (52:02):
Yeah no. I first, you did a tweet thread about
Gamma and it was probably about a year ago, and
I just like reached out. I just started whole people
did cool stuff, and I was like, I need this
on the podcast, and I really I don't know. Yeah,
the story sticks out to me so much because of
just this like how hyperbolic his like physical capacity was, right,

(52:27):
but like actually probably was on some level greater than
I have no doubts that he could just do squats
all day, right yeah, and then like and then just
like actually using it.

Speaker 2 (52:41):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (52:42):
I mean it's like the way you're describing this culture,
you know, the like warrior monk thing that is like
is largely mythologized, and it's like, you know, the Western
conception of the night is like comparable protect the I mean,
usually they're doing absolutely horrible things and stuf, right, but
this idea of like, oh, you're going to be this

(53:02):
person who's gonna like use the fact that you spend
all your time training to fight and no one else
does to go like help the defenseless or whatever. Like,
I just I love seeing that actually happening.

Speaker 2 (53:15):
It's It's very much comic superhero origin story stuff, isn't it.

Speaker 1 (53:19):
Yeah yeah, well thanks, uh, thanks for telling me about
all this stuff. There's so much more I want to
learn about all of this, and I can't believe that
slowly I'm being convinced that I think I always on
some level knew that sports matter, but like there's still

(53:40):
just this part of me that was like, no, I
was a trans girled in know it, so I hate
a gym class, so therefore sports is bad and like
fucking bullshit.

Speaker 2 (53:50):
Sports is great.

Speaker 3 (53:53):
Question, Yeah exactly, I.

Speaker 1 (53:57):
Didn't even then like it was my gym. It was
my gym. Tpro is a gym teacher at my school
who like the way that my school got a gay
straight alliance is that these two obviously in retrospect lesbian
teachers came up to me and we're like, did you
know that teachers can't start student groups. Here's all of
the forms for a gay straight alliance, please sign them.

(54:18):
And one of them was the gym teacher lady, who
was obviously a lesbian in retrospect. So gym teachers even
really am just mad at the kids who picked on me.
And it's not there. It's not sports fault, not sports,
it's there fault. Yeah, society's fault. I don't know. You
got anything that you want to plug the ways that

(54:41):
people could follow you. What's the name of one of
your stories that people could go read?

Speaker 2 (54:48):
Well, the last one I have is like, actually, you
probably should read that because like, the novel I'm writing
is kind of like a sequel to that short story.
It's called Party a PI. You'll find it on Lightspeed magazine.
Hell yeah, and you can follow me on the tweet
machine for as long as it exists. I'm at NAMESHIV.

(55:10):
I tweet about lots of random stuff, some of which
we've covered.

Speaker 1 (55:15):
Cool. I'm on Twitter still, also at Magpie Killjoy unless
you're listening to this far enough in the future where
I'm not and instead I am free, and by free
I mean doing all kinds of other things instead, because
I like eating food on a regular basis and so
it is my dog. I'm also on Instagram at Margaret Kiljoy.
I'm now on Substack at Margaret Kiljoy or not at

(55:39):
Margaret Kiljoy dot substock dot com. Substack being a newsletter
thing where I write an essay every week and a
lot of it is like reflections on the history that
I'm learning about as I work on this show. Some
of it is about preparedness and some of it's just
like memoir and things like that. And what do you got?

(56:02):
Can people follow you on things? What if people want
to bug you about the ads that you have no
control over? How can they?

Speaker 3 (56:12):
Oh, that's that's at I write? Okay on Twitter?

Speaker 1 (56:15):
Oh okay, cool? What if they don't want to hear
ads at all? Can go ahead? Well what was the question?
What if they don't want to hear ads at all?
Can they follow us?

Speaker 2 (56:25):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (56:26):
At Cooler Zone Media Media.

Speaker 3 (56:29):
Yeah, on Apple podcasts. Yeah, that's the thing. Just at
cool Zone Media for all the shows, all the things.
And if you find my handles on there too, there's
cute pictures of my dog somewhere.

Speaker 1 (56:45):
They are cute pictures of a cute dog. And we
will talk to you next week with more cool people
who did cool stuff. By bye.

Speaker 3 (57:00):
Some People Who Did Cool Stuff is a production of
cool Zone Media. For more podcasts on cool Zone Media,
visit our website coolzonmedia dot com, or check us out
on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
your podcasts.