8. Singer takes the bull by its horns


The Greek King looked visibly shaken to see Harvi arriving aboard the muck fortress. This was clearly not going as per the aliens’ expectations. Harvi had performed far beyond their expectations. So it was time to apply Peter’s principle and try to discover Harvi’s level of incompetence. So this time the number of tasks was increased to three.

"In the next 2 days you shall return here with the Cretan Bull, the Mares of Diomedes and the cows of Geryon"

What the hell! This was Farmville or what? Cows, bulls, horses, eh? So many times he had laughed at the stupidity of people posting on face book about farm animals being given, taken, lost, found and stolen. Now he himself had to doing that stuff. What an irony of fate! He wished he had played Farmville. That would have given his some ideas. With a two day deadline it was too late to start playing now. He had to go by his gut feel and literally take the bull by its horns.

Harvi boarded his castle and zoomed off to Crete. There he was greeted by a most curious spectacle. An angry bull was wresting a ferocious bear along a river bank. The bull was trying to toss the bear up and the bear was trying to beat the bull down. A group of men were standing close to the bank and watching intently. Harvi noticed one of them nearby who looked wise and friendly. He approached him and accosted him thus, “Good, sir, can you please enlighten me on what is going on here.

Don’t you know?” He stared at Harvi incredulously as if he could not believe there would be someone so ignorant and continues, “This is the eternal battle between the the bull and the bear. The fate of the entire earth depends on the balance between these two opposing forces. There are a huge army of smartest people on various worlds with sophisticated computing tools closely observing and analyzing this battle. Pages and pages are written about every little movement. People bet fortunes on predictions related to the course of this battle.

What happens if one of them wins?

The man’s face turned pale as if he had said something extremely shocking “That would be catastrophic. The balance of the cosmos would be upset and the fabric of space time continuum would be torn apart. All worlds feel tremors of even small shifts in balance of power between the two. An outright victory for one over the other would mean end of this world

Harvi notices the bear was having a slight advantage and was slowly cowing the bull down. No wonder the world was in recession and Greece was worst hit of all places.

And who are those men standing there?” asked Harvi pointing to them men standing close to the bank watching the fight intently

They are the bankers.” He pointed out to a man with thick golden chain, golden tooth filling and golden rings on every finger “That is the gold man” Then he pointed towards a weak battered looking man standing in a corner. “That is lay man (Lehman). He tried to get into the ring and manipulate the fight. He got mauled badly by the bear. He is now no more a (Nomura) top banker

Well friend. Let me get to the point. I am an adventurer and a client has given me an assignment to fetch the bull. Can you help me with the same?

Don’t even dream of going anywhere near the bear and the bull. You might end up endangering the entire world. I will tell you what to do. Do you see over there?” He was pointing to a place that looked like a shrine. He could see a long line of people in front of the shrine.

Harvi nodded his head. “What is that place?

They are distributing the bull’s manure there. That gives people solution to most of their problems. It may solve your problems too. But remember you need to make an offering to the divine bull in order to be bestowed with its divine manure

He stood in the line thinking what to offer. Again his mobile phone came to his rescue. The phone gave him the latest stock market trends and stock tips that he offered at the shrine. The abbot at the temple, a man in pin stripe suit with red horns and a pointed tail was very happy with the offering and gave him a generous helping of bull manure.

He took some of it and applied on his forehead. Immediately his brain started working at top gear. It suddenly dawned on him that the manure was more important than the bull. He realized how the whole world ran on bovine excreta. It went by fancy names such as strategy, business consulting, vision etc. But it was all the same. All that mattered was a fancy external appearance.

All he had to do was to buy a life size hollow statue of the bull and fill it with the manure. He wondered where he could get such a bull. He decided to ask on Quora where he would get one in ancient Greece. 'Troy' was voted as the best answer. The Trojans were famous for their hollow horses. No reason why they could not make hollow bulls as well. He activated the GPS on his mobile phone and connected to his fortress. He found himself whizzing away towards Troy. He spoke with the Trojans and soon had a deal. But it costed him almost all the remaining bottles of snake oil. He mixed the remains of the snake oil with the manure and filled the bull. And Lo behold! It stood in front of him larger than life.

As he lead the bull away to his muck fortress, he noticed someone was waiting for him at the entrance of his fortress. The person looked kind of familiar. It was Mynakos!

Next Part of the Story       : Singer on his High Horse
Previous Part of the Story  : Singer does a Flying Sikh Act
First Part of the Story         : Singer on the Roof

Picture credit : Bull Picture

33 comments:

Arti said...

Apart from 'The Chronicles of Narnia' (Movie), I have not read or seen any fantasy book or movie. The genre never appealed to me. But this has me hooked tf. This is great, loved how you intermingled the management lesson and the mobile into this. And Mykanos makes an appearance, hmmm. Interesting. Keep Going.

Hemant said...

I love your imagination dude...u must be a script writer..If I would have been there to judge the winner...u are the best one to quote the importance of internet..
I started reading the first story and there was no end...I had to complete..


All the best.
looking forward for the next part of the story

DS said...

Same here Arti, but I have not even seen all the Narnia movies!!
TF, this is getting better and better. Bull and Bear (symbolic for share markets??), great imagination!!!
Looking forward to next part! Mykanos comes into the equation once again as you said in the morning.

T F Carthick said...

Thanks a lot, Arti. Was pleasantly surprised to see yours as the first comment on this post. Glad to see you are following this series.

T F Carthick said...

Thanks a lot, Hemant and welcome to my blog. Your words itself makes me a winner whether I win anything in the contest or not.

T F Carthick said...

Of course, DS. Any doubts? See the lehman goldman reference.Thanks for your continued support, DS.

dvirada said...

These series are a legend in themselves and so are you:) Whenever I read each post in this series, I tell myself that this is imagination at its best. But you prove me wrong by coming up with your next post, which is better than the best..

I strongly feel you should author a book for the benefit of larger audience.

And Mynakos returns, eh? It makes me so happy that I surmised it right. I had a strong feeling he would be back and therefore commented the same on the Dirty picture post. Glad it came true:)

T F Carthick said...

Thanks a lot, dvirada. If I can maintain the same quality and momentum till the end, I may write it as a novel. Even if nobody publishes I may still make a copies printed for myself, you and a few other regular readers of this blog.

T F Carthick said...

@ dvirada - Regarding Mynakos. It was the other way round. When I wrote him he was not intended to return. Only after your comment, I realized the scope in that character.

RioZee said...

the parts turning in to whole, very smooth flow gaining momentum day by day. kudos.

T F Carthick said...

Thanks, Pl. Half the whole has emerged. Remaining half to emerge over next week.

umashankar said...

The stroke of genius continues.... The bulls and the bears and the bankers! Finally, I get featured too: I am a banker! ;)

Ruchita said...

Awesome Imagination!!!! Loved everybit of it... Eagerly waiting for next one

T F Carthick said...

Thanks umashankar. I saw in your website that you are a banker. So was waiting for your comments.

T F Carthick said...

Thanks, Ruchita. Can see you are also proceeding on the same path as me.

Ghumakkar Punit said...

Super High on imagination....loved the way you talked about the eternal Bull and Bear fight relating Greek crisis, Lehman and Nomura....superb!

Shesha Chaturvedi said...

I came here on a friend's recommendation. I started with the first part and couldn't leave it till here. You have instilled management bits, humor, wits, virtual world everything. Interesting narration and a binding story! I would wait for the next episode...
All the best

P.S. Just realized I have become a kind soul... (following you :P)

T F Carthick said...

Thanks a lot, Punit. Nice of you to go through the entire series.

T F Carthick said...

Welcome to my blog, Shesha. I am happy you liked my story and hope to see you till the end of the story.You are indeed a kind soul. Without the kind souls , I would never have managed to keep my passion for writing alive. Wonder who is the other kind soul who suggested by blog to you.

Shesha Chaturvedi said...

Hemant, the guy who gave the second comment!!! :)

T F Carthick said...

Wow, Shesha. This Hemant is a great guy - Not only follows my blog, but brings friends along. Every blogger's dream reader!

Shesha Chaturvedi said...

hahaha U bet.. Good writings brings recommendations! :)

C Suresh said...

hardly a thing left to say TF! Others have said it all...How you manage to inter-weave the current economic crisis, the tasks of Hercules and the Internet only you know. And great to see that the idea of a novel is more firmly implanted in your mind

T F Carthick said...

Thanks, CS. Once I am done with this begins the tough task of compiling everything together in novel form.

Princess Poo said...

Mykanos is here :O.
Oh my!

BTW this is going way too awesome TF JHI :). Loving every bit of it :D

T F Carthick said...

Thanks , princess.

Rafaa Dalvi said...

This is personally my favourite part of the Singer series so far. Bear, Bull and Bankers. Absolutely loved it.

T F Carthick said...

It is good to know an episode late in the series is a favorite so that the initial hype is not lost as story flows.

Vikas Khair said...

I am very late in following up the series .. actually started reading it after checking your FB post about it. Great going .. Share Market and all the bankers - The Three B's and Mynakos returns .. let's see what happens next.

T F Carthick said...

Better late than never Vikas. I am glad you are reading it and enjoying it.

Vikas Khair said...

Can't stop after reading just one .. everyone would be compelled to finish the entire series after starting it.

Unknown said...

I absolutely enjoyed the cosmic balance stemming from the fight between the bull and the bear. After the mention of Lehman, I was waiting for a crack against Goldman too :D

T F Carthick said...

Thanks Pankti. There is a mention of Goldman too in the same paragraph.

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