Joke 1
Joe Blogger had a cheque returned last week. They said it was due to “Insufficient Funds.” Now, Joe’s not sure if they meant his account or the bank’s?

Joke 2
There are two sides to a bank’s balance sheet - the left side and the right side. On the left side, there is nothing right, and on the right side, there is nothing left!

My cell phone has been bombarded with forwarded jokes like the ones above ever since the global financial crisis started. At least some people have their sense of humour intact despite the troubled times. Some might even thank God for such small mercies.

The BSE Sensex which has been hurtling down in a merciless downward spiral for the past 8 months has seen a Monday morning surge. The index is up more than 7 pct on assurances from finance minister P Chidambaram that the government was working on more measures to improve liquidity.

But will liquidity revive the markets and restore confidence?

For its part, India’s top private sector lender ICICI has unleashed an unprecedented information drive (on TV, by email and SMS) to assure depositors that all is well with the bank.

Over the past months, the world which went flat so that business could go where it’s done best might have actually shrunk. Pundits and punters talking about the Great Depression of the 1930s as if it was a Friday movie release that was not well-received.

Money which made the world go round seems to have suddenly done a vanishing act and we’re searching for answers.

The Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) CRR cut is expected to infuse Rs 60,000 crores into the markets. This money can ease pressure on businesses which some newspapers reports said were forced to borrow from private lenders at 35-40 pct to sustain or complete existing projects, especially in the real estate sector.

Realty stocks like DLF which launched promoters like KP Singh into the global rich list have foundered badly.

But the contagion did not stop at just the real estate scrips. Bellwether IT firms like Infosys and TCS have been hammered along with banking stocks like ICICI which fell prey to a world-wide market aversion to the financial sector.

All this despite a general consensus among market analysts and economists that India remain comparatively insulated because of its strong fundamentals and less dependency on exports.

Monday’s rally has raised a number of questions, more so for the retail investor many of whom got singed badly.

Has the bottom been found finally?

Is this the right time to buy battered stocks and build your portfolio?

Can someone actually time this market?

We would love to get some answers. If you don’t have them, even jokes will do. I know it’s too late to laugh our way to the banks. But a smile can help, even in such days of despair.

If you want a break from a global financial meltdown, the launch of Bentley’s latest luxury car in India can be welcome relief - and show that the rich are still doing what they do best. Buying unnecessary things.

It means you can, in my case, leave behind an office full of tired journalists hunched over ever more depressing data, and ignore TV screens showing grimfaced politicians and weepy traders.

Out there somewhere, someone has the cash to buy the ‘New Continental Flying Spur Speed’ Bentley - even if that somebody isn’t you.

The car - which costs a cool Rs2.5crore (over half a million USD) - was on display at one of the capital’s high-end hotels on Friday.

Boasting a stylish black finish and a retro-style front grille, the car’s specs are, in the current climate, almost satirical.

To get to 100kmh needs just 4.8 seconds of pedal pressing; while your top speed - if you were ever tempted to try it out - is 322kmh.

Every car is also custom-made to fit the whims of those who can still afford to be whimsical; and is built with a decadent slowness that means that the cover for the steering wheel, for example, takes 5 1/2 hours to stitch together.

It makes for entertaining reading on the same day that the carmaker’s country of origin, the UK, is revving up to sue Iceland over withheld bank deposits - not an event many of us saw coming.

And as Bentley’s MD for India says, ‘there is always somebody making money’. While things are starting to look really bad in India, Bentley and many companies like it still see the country as a ‘key market’, and aren’t going anywhere.