The flight from London to Chicago was perhaps the only thing which I liked about my work. We had our head office in Chicago and lots of clients based in London, so I had to frequent between the two places often. I preferred to fly Virgin not for anything else but for an air hostess whose long legs and naughty smile made me realize that after all there was hope to turnaround my wrecked married life which was devastated by a storm name Cynthia Korni, my first wife, a Russian. We divorced 6 months back citing irreconcilable differences over the way in which we should brush our teeth – she preferred Vodka and I preferred Colgate. It was 3 hours into my usual flight to Chicago when I got a call from the Yoldie Hospital.

“Mr. Max”

“Yes, speaking”

“Mr. Max we are calling from the Yoldie Hospital. We have got a bad news. Your friend Mr. Jerome is no more, he has committed suicide by stabbing himself with a pencil”

“What? Pencil?”

“Yes sir, he also tried to put his fingers in the switchboard but unfortunately there was no power; we haven’t paid our electricity bills since France rejected the EU constitution”.

“EU Constitution? What has it got to do with electricity?”

“Sir, the owner of this hospital is French, so as a mark of solidarity with our French citizens we have decided not to pay our electricity bills. Please collect your friend’s body within the next 4 hours and pay us for the pencil which he had used for committing suicide. Merci”

Yoldie hospital had a track record of feeding corpses to hungry ants which were, for some spiritual reason, the logo of the hospital. I knew that it would be too late if I were to reach Chicago and come back to London, so I decided to get back to London in the least possible time; after all, Jerome was a friend. I played a simple trick which gets the flight attendants bathe with sweat these days. I just informed the cabin crew on board that the man sitting next to me was mysteriously looking at the wings of the plane. [He earlier had asked me that if planes could fly with their wings spread why cant humans fly with their hands spread].

As expected the cabin crew got alarmed and informed the pilot, and the plane headed for an emergency landing in Ireland. Two well built monsters flaunting their muscles came and looked at my neighbor who was still obsessed with the sight of the stretched wings.
[He told me he was a scientist from a third world country and was looking for ideas which would enable him to win a Nobel Prize someday]. He was lifted and taken at the back of the flight for what was called just a special massage accorded to a lucky passenger.

The flight landed in Ireland and it was my first time in here so I was really excited about it, after all it was the land of U2; the excitement got curtailed a bit by the thought of Jerome. As a mark of respect to him I dined at a 5 star hotel where he always wished to dine; in the evening I attended a U2 concert whom he once described as the best jazz players around; I slept with a Irish prostitute since he always wanted to himself, but I paid her for her services, something which he would normally avoid by claiming he only had a credit card.

On reaching London I knew I had to fulfill Jerome’s other wishes – that of throwing a stone at the Buckingham palace, setting a nuclear bomb under Elton john’s wax statue, and encouraging primary school kids to undertake the mantle of finding weapons of mass destruction in their dad’s garage and their mother’s wardrobe.

After about 40 days I finally made it to the hospital and enquired about Jerome.

“Max”

“Jerome… What the…?…… I thought you were dead”

“Dead…. Me not. I have been never better. You know what, I am getting married this fall”

“Oh right…great”

Ironically he showed me the photograph of that long-legs naughty-smile air hostess and called her “My Love”, and I felt that my ship of love had sunk like a titanic in the ocean of failures.

I realized that the Jerome who had died was a friend of that would be Nobel laureate, my neighbor, who incidentally had a similar first name; accidentally I had picked up his mobile and answered the call and apparently he had my mobile with him. Six men with their black suits came into the hospital 3 minutes after my discovery and said “CIA” in korus and gagged my mouth with pop-corn and took me into the car. My friend Jerome promised me that he would tell Time Magazine about the incident if they promised to give him the title of “Secret source” and then leak his name.

After having gained consciousness I found myself in an orange dress with handcuffs all over my body and sitting next to me was the would be Nobel laureate in his orange dress with a copy of “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”.

“How was your trip?” he asked

“Eventful” I managed to say.

“They give a really personalized treatment in here. Each day is different; it’s just like some adventure. They are so kind and caring that they read me stories in the night, they check my health every 22 minutes, they show me clips of Michael Jackson saying “I didn’t do it” and they tell me that getting on top of the sofa was the latest craze in the US. I wrote to the president thanking him for having such a wonderful amusement park for adults and in fact I invited him to come over here along with his close friends, to which he never replied, but anyway you will like it in here”.

“Yeah … Right.” I said.

When on stage
The whole world got engaged
The scream, the joy
The yell, the cry
I loved it, so I thought
I am the great pretender

Behind the closed doors
Felt a labour of my course
As I watched life move by
Not knowing, I was a puppet or a pie
Everyone loved, but no one to love
I am the great pretender.

Everyone was a friend
But deep within needed a shoulder to depend,
Had the whole world as a domain
Just needed a corner to remain

The smile, the blush, was real, so they thought?
Never knew that it was all bought,
Confidence & ambition symbolized me in this world
Despair & loneliness trivialized me within.

Here are some of my favorite quotes from ”Wall Street“.

“It’s all about bucks, kid. The rest is conversation. “

“It’s not always the most popular person who gets the job done. “

“You see that building? I bought that building ten years ago. My first real estate deal. Sold it two years later, made an $800,000 profit. It was better than sex. At the time I thought that was all the money in the world. Now it’s a day’s pay. “

“Greed is good. “

“If you need a friend, get a dog.”

“The point is ladies and gentlemen that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of it’s forms – greed for life, for money, knowledge – has marked the upward surge of mankind and greed – you mark my words – will not only save Teldar Paper but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA. Thank you. “

“What’s worth doing is worth doing for money.”

“The main thing about money, Bud, is that it makes you do things you don’t want to do. “

“How much is enough? It’s not a question of enough, pal. It’s a zero sum game, somebody wins, somebody loses. Money itself isn’t lost or made, it’s simply transferred from one perception to another.”

One funny para i had a good laugh over was bono’s meeting with our texas cowboy, now the US president.

Scene: The bullet proof motorcade is speeding through the streets of the capital with people waving at the leader of the Free World, and him waving back.

Bono:”You are pretty popular here!”
Bush:”It wasnt always so…”
Bono:”Oh really!!”
Bush:”Yeah. When i first came to this town, people used to wave at me with one finger. Now, they found another three fingers and a thumb.”

“Bono on Bono: Conversations with Michka Assayas”

Has pearls of wisdom splattered all around, however to pick a few:

“Looking is the job description, existence is the job.”

“Associate with the noblest people you can find; read the best book; live with the mighty; but learn to be happy alone.”

“Saul Bellow: Ravelstein”

The Wall Street

The street of joy, the street of sorrow
Here heroes are made and villains originate
Hopes and despair all stimulate,
People trade both intentions and mistakes
They call it the Wall Street.

The corporate sun dawns and dooms here
Histories get revisited, and future redefined
Dreams are dreamt, and destinies showcased
Gods are met and devils faced
They call it the Wall Street.

With each call of buy and sell
It’s not the shares which are bought or sold
But the lives which people hold
Braving the hot and the cold
They call it the Wall Street.

Here fortune precedes emotions and the greenback rules
But they all come here as a pilgrimage
Sometime to celebrate and sometime to mourn
Never truly knowing what it meant
They call it the Wall Street.