Bulls drive stock market. But in India cows drive stalk market
Perhaps it’s patriarchy which kept her away from fame all these years. But Jumbalika Kumar with fire in her belly (and on the TV screen) rescued herself from oblivion in the booming "stalk market". Nimble-footed and numb in the head, she takes stock of the stalking to be done in the market. The stalk market resembles the stock market in many ways. They both thrive on anticipation. Bulls drive the stock market. Cows drive the stalk market. And Jumbalika is one of the raging cows in the business. In fact, she’s so full of vice that the investors of her channel, Slimy Cow, made her the vice-president recently.
Jumbalika understands the importance of lies and thrives on the emerging market for lies and deceptive services. As a child she noticed that when people commit sins, they often visit places of worship, stand in a VIP queue, donate money, and voila, sins were cleansed. And so, she realised the correlation between sins and religion, and consumed copious amounts of sodium thiopental to become immune to it. She still gets sedated by it, but the stories in her synapses find release when she works, and she believes them to be true. This prevents any dissonance with her conscience.
Working in the stalk market is quite strenuous. She often has to bear the cramps sitting motionless as a prop in a cinema waiting to pounce on any leader who dares not to build up sins and decides to relax rather than visit a place of worship to deceive people. No deception means a crash in the "sinsex" as the index of the stalk market is called. She’s a toughie. A few months ago, during a cacophonous discussion on her show by a boisterous panel, that was attempting to differentiate between sedition and sedation, a feeble voice of reason dared to talk about children who died due to a shortage of oxygen at a hospital. Jumbalika lunged at the voice and slaughtered it like her mentor taught her to.
Her mentor, Mir Jumla, stalked a girl in street number 2002 and along with his saheb is the beacon of the deceptive services industry. Mir Jumla’s son Jay Jumla built a "temple" for the stalk market with 16,000 "cubes". When people mistake them for architects, they remind them that they specialise in building castles in the air. Jumbalika often meets her Yale-returned economist friend at the temple. They discuss the irony of the stalk market where the bigger the lie the better the pay. Her friend, Smitten Irony, explained recently that the confusion in the Gobar Sangh Taxes has created a lot of employment for the CAs.
“Likewise,” said the lady smitten by irony, “When people face adverse times, they need comforting lies and top-notch jumlas. Therefore, the stalk market is an anti-cyclic industry. It does well in a recession. All we have to do is stalk people, make mountains of mole hills and keep people away from trivial issues like jobs, healthcare, security, you know."
“She’s right,” said Irony Jetlee, the chief hedge fund manager. Sorry the fudge fund manager.
“For us to succeed, you have to stalk people and tell stories while we cook up numbers, invent formulae and do the Sawa-see-see dance," said the grumpy Irony Jetlee, before going onto explaining how they create slowdowns so that the deceptive services industry can thrive and get cowish.
Heeding her masters, Jumbalika began presenting an old monk as someone who’s making the northern satrap of Udder Pradesh breathless. Some people pointed out that the breathlessness is due to lack of oxygen. But with her conscience already asphyxiated, Jumbalika is now bracing to digress from the rapidly spreading epidemic of the mad cow disease. The old monk is now on a tour of the southern satrap of Cownautica and is getting naughty there. In dire consequences, he’s humming the sultans of swing in his delusional Cownautica.
Meanwhile, should people ask questions from reality, Jumbalika is plotting her next stalking escapade. Anyone could be her victim, you and I included. So, it’s best to inform her before we watch a film, or go whining and dining with our loved ones.
She could be anywhere. She’s a crouching tiger, a hidden dragon and a bovine beauty. Jumbalika is the raging cow of the stalk market.