The Electric Chair

For those who have no idea what this is all about:
Russian Salad
Russian Salad – Second helping
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Ahhh..... so the plot thickens!

No sooner had I written the above line than I was inundated by calls from Ketchup makers from all over from India and other SAARC countries clamouring for this amazing secret ingredient 'plot'. They had done extensive consumer research and the unanimous verdict was that consumers wanted their tomato ketchup thick. After analysing this insight for six months they got rid of all their marketing guys who had interpreted this in a slightly wrong manner and were "laying it on thick" and instead agreed with the disappointingly straightforward interpretation that the viscoisity of the product needed to be higher. I was offered high prices for 'plot'; so high infact that I could have easily left my job and pranced around naked with garland (and solely garland) clad girls on Honolulu. It was with a heavy heart that I had to explain to them that plot was nothing but a construct, a story. I'm going to recite Jack and the Beanstalk to work-in-progress Ketchup next Friday.

Do not interpret this as the daftness of corporate India. They know as well as you do that this is not going to work. But they are willing to take a shot at ANYthing. What goes? A thousand rupees an hour which they will pay me? Pittance! And if, IF by some miracle, the ketchup does turn out thicker, then they have millions to gain. It was with this kind of reasoning that Vladimir stole Sergi's space. It did not cost him much to steal it. But if, just IF Sergi was doing what Vladimir thought he was doing, then this would strike a mightly blow to Sergi.

And now readers, you might be thinking: What is it that Vladimir thought Sergi was thinking? What do u mean by 'stealing' space. Theres no such thing! And if there is, how can it be done? And I say to my readers: All in good time... all in good time. Because right now I have to introduce to you, Vladimir's amazing invention - "Remainderizer"

Vladimir took keen interest in the stock market and the corporate world. He used to read books like "Barbarians at the Gate" in which he read about Mike Milken and such other people who used to buy out a company, break it into divisions and sell them piecemeal, thereby getting more than what the company was worth as a whole. He decided to put this into practice and bought a company, broke it up and sold it piecemeal. He almost went bankrupt. He broke up the company storey-wise. Simple execution. No relocation costs. Why cut the cake when I can buy pastries? Basement was company A, first floor was company B, second floor was company C, and thrid floor was company D (which was bought by Randeep Hooda, who had no experience in running corporates but never for a second wavered in his belief that "Is dhandhe me experience ki nahi, daring ki zaroorat hai). The problem as you might have already guessed is that people were seated on different floors roughly on an 'as available' basis, and no floor could really function independently.

Although the attempt was a total failure, Vladimir came out of it (as many of the stories in Tinkle comics ended) 'a sadder but wiser man'. (I mean what kind of a sick world is this? Does it always have to be the horns of the dilemma? Whats the use of being wise if you are sad? But you know whats the really bad part? You have to be wise AND sad. You cant even choose. Because as usual life is full of catch 22 situations. You see, you really need to be wise to understand that happiness is the ultimate aim in life. As soon as one realises this, one becomes a wise and therefore sad man. The only way therefore, one could be happy is through serendipity. Dont strive to be happy; its a meaningless exercise.) He thought about it. You divide something and the sum of the parts is more than the whole? What if you divide 50 by 5 and the multiplication of the divisor and the quotient was more than 50? How is this simply possible? It isnt... unless... unless there is a remainder created in this process! Something like alcohol in cough syrups! Generated by the dynamics of creation of the subject matter. Now some circumstances / processes / situations result in generation of remainders. However, if there was a process to generate remainders itself, rather than remainders being a by-product of some other process, then...Vladimir did not even dare think of the implications of this. It would be his largest invention ever.

It is pointless to go into the details of the modus operandi of his invention, as otherwise this piece will cease to be literature (yeah shut up!) and will look like a thesis paper on calculus and quantum mechanics. Suffice to say that the remainderizer was invented, and it worked too. There was one hitch though. The remainder wasnt something REAL. You know, when the companies were split and the value increased, the increase was nothing but an increase in its stock value. Share prices are nothing but perception of the market. Oh well, it was real in the sense that you would go and make an real cash profit if you sold the shares. But that is in the construct of a share market. The basic principle of the Remainderizer was that it would generate a remainder which only had a percieved value. The percieved value may or may not be real depending on the construct from case to case.

# posted by A Chrysanthemum by any other name... : 4:26 AM