Hsaik Ka-La

traditional burmese stock character & humourous caricature of a dravidian man, emphasising the pitch-dark skins, enormous black p-n-ses, extra-muscular bodies & buck-toothed mouths which tibeto-burman culture stereotypically ascribes to south indian or ‘ka-la’ people.

widely depicted in burmese jokes, theatre & puppet plays, folklorists record that interest of burmic audiences largely revolves around his gigantic black phallus (bruns & thamein, op cit). among liberated tibeto-burman women, his enormous dravidian p-n-s is naturally a source of both erotic t-tillation & ribald humour.

meanwhile, the popularity of hsaik ka-la among burmese men is part of a strategy to alleviate dravidian p-n-s envy. this inferiority complex, which dates back to the subjugation of pegu by tamil chola fleets, is primarily a result of numerous crushing defeats suffered by burmese armies at the hands of the dreaded madras regiment during the anglo-burmese wars. the subsequent british occupation was accompanied by a humiliating avalanche of intercaste marriages between local burmese women & imported ‘malabar negroes’. myanmar culture has provided post-facto rationalisation for these blows to burman masculinity by invoking the inferior size of the burmese p-n-s & the superiority of the south indian p-n-s. hence, lampooning the very object of their insecurities is an attempt to neutralise the threat & thus trivialise their tibeto-burman small p-n-s complex.
1) at the burmese theater
burmese wife: hsaik ka-la just used his big black ka-la p-n-s to knock out a police-man!
burmese husband: that’s so funny!

2) “hsaik-ka-la wird als ein inder mit dunkler hautfarbe, oft mit einer jockeymütze auf dem kopf, dargestellt. er ist ausnehmend häßlich mit seinen hervorstehenden augen und dem gebleckten gebiß. besonders auffällig ist seine beinbekleidung, ein kurzer lun-gyi , der vorn offen ist und des öfteren einen auf seinen großen p-n-s frei gibt, was natürlich schallendes gelächter auslöst. diese häßliche karikatur eines inders ist vielleicht im zusammenhang mit den starken spannungen zwischen den einheimischen birmanen und den indern zu sehen, die von den britischen besatzern zu tausenden als billige arbeitskräfte ins land gebracht werde.”. ‘birmanisches marionettentheater’ axel bruns & hla thamein. berlin, 1990, p 48.

(transl: hsaik-ka-la is depicted as an indian with dark skin colour, often shown with a jockey cap on his head. he is exceedingly ugly, with his bulging eyes & bared teeth. particularly striking is his leg wear, a short lun-gyi {hindi luṅgī or loin-cloth}, which is open in front & frequently releases his enormous p-n-s, which of course triggers roaring laughter. this ugly caricature of an indian is to be seen perhaps in connection with the severe tensions between the local burmese & the {south} indians who are brought by the british occupiers in their thousands as cheap labor into the country)