Bull, Bear & Bullshit

He felt orphaned when Harshad Mehta died and, went into deep depression when Ketan Parekh was arrested by the CBI for his involvement in multi million rupee stock exchange scam. His dream of making it big by following the Big Bull and KP appeared to have been shattered. They were the only God figures he looked up to since he learned to play with marbles.

While other children of his age dreamt of becoming an engine driver, a pilot or an engineer, a doctor or a writer, Hardshell Shylock (HS) told his granny he wanted to become a wealth manager, so focused was he on his life goal. “I don’t mind going to jail or fleeing to Andorra or Costa Rica if only I can make Moolah,” he would tell his close confidantes, who included his female classmates and his loyal maid servant.

To HS, Money, Moolah and Mammon mattered most, not even matrimony.  He lived in Moneynagar, which later became the constituency of his hero, Modi the Nero, popularly known as Nemo. Noticing that all the children of petty shopkeepers in his mohalla attended the local Shakha, HS too followed them to the common municipal ground usurped for the purpose by the pracharak whose side business was booking betting numbers (Worli Matka) on the Ratan Khatri network.

At the shakha, HS learned among other things the importance of Marxism. “Religion is the opiate of the masses,” Karl Marx had said in Das Kapital. The local shakha pramukh used to quote this in his daily sermon while propagating Guru Golmalkar’s preachings. “All swayamsevak’s of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your khaki knickers,” he would proclaim before the gathering of school kids.

HS didn’t mind losing his knickers if he could get a Raymond’s suit in exchange. He saw how his hero, Nemo the Nero, too had discarded the knickers for Armani’s and GAP after his election to the highest executive post in the state. Nemo had executed the Marxist theory by dividing the people of Gujarat on religious lines and intoxicating them with the opiate and driving them into a state of frenzy.

Once elected to the throne, Nemo helped his money launderer KP escape from the long arms of the law. Nemo mastered the art of twisting the law and using corrupt police officers like Bon Zara to perfect the craft of extortion. No wonder, HS was dazzled by Nemo’s super duper strategy of making money.  He started imagining and projecting himself as ‘THE KING OF BULL TIMES’. 

“If Nemo can bullshit his way to power, why can’t I do the same as a wealth manager giving the unsuspecting clients bullshit tips in collusion with the stock market operators of the Dalal Street?” he would tell his confidants.