ALL THAT GLITTERS IS ONLY GOLD

Do you have golden memories? You may or may not have. But gold has golden memories. Not one or two, it has golden memories almost all the times. It has got some historic brushing also. The golden period of gold had started when mankind recognized the yellow metal as worthy (worth as life). Men and women gave due attention at early days. But when women had started romancing it the story became more serious and more contemporary. When mankind discovered the investment value in gold the story had become more realistic. Actually after that the golden period of gold had started.
When business minds started working ornaments of various varieties came to the scene. Women started discovering more and more parts of their body to cover it with gold ornaments. As a result gold had become a master metal. The social scenario played a vital role in writing the golden history of gold. In Indian scenario the dowry system acted as a catalyst for gold. When it became a status symbol gold found it’s key role in weddings. So many lives are spoiled because of this metal. Many poor women committed suicide only because of this metal. The main cause of dowry related deaths are gold now days in India. But the sad thing is that it added glory to the famous and adventurous story of gold.

Golden story -recent times
When the New Year (2009) began the price of gold was 13610 for 10gms. After one and a half month the price shot up and on Feb 17, 10gms of gold will cost Rs15230. This is only a recent record. If the trend continues gold may touch even 20,000 for 10gms. Jewellery shop owners swear that their business is dull. Not many retail buyers are there in the market but surprisingly the prices are scaling new heights. The main reasons for the particular trend are the fall in equity markets world over. Investors who are fed up with the degradation of their value in equities switch it over to gold. As a result demand increases and naturally price goes up. This has been happening from the second half of last year. (Specifically says after the collapse of Lehman brothers).
In Indian scenario there is one more problem. That is the depreciating rupee. Recently Indian rupee touched 50 mark against US dollar. Depreciating rupee also plays a key role in the increase of gold prices. The third reason is increased buying interest in gold funds. Now a days the demand for gold funds increased like nothing. The sad thing is that in this type of investment the lion’s portion will be traders. They will never take delivery of the metal instead they will cash on daily up and downs.
In recent times large numbers of speculators are involved in the gold market. They are the villains unnoticed behind the sharp increase in the price hike of gold. Actually the time is favorable for gold as well as speculators who trade on gold.

Gold and equity market
The sub prime devil released by US is wandering all over the world. Be it east, west, north and south the situation remains the same. The devil is gulping the points in equities market. Banks had been vanished. Investors had lost crores of rupees as a result of this meltdown in the stock market. Take the case of India in particular, the picture remains the same. In January 2008 Bombay sensitive index or sensex scaled an height of 21,000. This was a classical mark set by the united efforts of FIIs and domestic players. But the glory didn’t last long. The rest of the year was gloomy days for the Indian equity market. It came down and down after days and breached all the confidence levels set by the analysts. Now it is hovering around 8000 mark (as on 20-Feb-09). As a result of this panic investors started looking for alternate investment avenues. They found Commodities market is the right place to depend upon. Then gold started smiling at the investors. Like ladies investors also started romancing gold. They started nurturing their dreams upon it. In India gold is sold in terms of eight grams. 10,000 was the historic mark set by gold (for 8gms) in recent past. But in the third week of February it crossed the 11,000 mark for 8gmn. In the investment horizon only thing which glitters is gold.

A burden for common man
Indian equities market had witnessed a short term buying trend during the second week of February this year. This was due to the huge expectation of interim budget. But when Pranob Mukherjee started his interim budget things had been changed. Snesex tanked a 300+ point downward trend. For three consecutive days the downward trend prevailed in the market at the same time gold price started increasing. There are some foreign reasons also. Russia had announced that it would buy gold. This news acted in favor of gold and gold still continues the upward trend.
Gold price hike is a big concern for the common man in this country. Particularly in a society which evaluates the standard of a marriage in terms of gold given as dowry. When gold price increases definitely the minds of fathers with daughters would beat faster. Due to the price hike in the country arised due to global conditions(!) marriages had became more and more costly. The burden of which ultimately falls on the shoulders of the bride’s father. If the price of gold increases further the number of unmarried women in this country will increase, that is the power of this yellow metal.

Hope of any escape
In the recent present it is not possible. Since the equities market is down the situation will continue. Analysts are of the view that the downward trend in the equities market would continue for some months. When the new government takes charge there is a possibility for the equities market to bounce back. There is a grand finale called the annual results announcement. This would give actual picture about what is happening in the corporate sector. After these events market would decide whether to go up or go down. If the equities market regain it’s strength then the attraction would shift towards it and the price of gold may come down.
Aggressive speculation is happening in gold funds. Now all the traders are taking positions. When the prices will reach the peak they will switch off their position and return home with the profit. When that happens there is a possibility of price decrease. In 98-99 same situation was there in the gold market. Then the European banks started selling gold in an aggressive manner which reduced the price of gold. If same thing happens there is a possibility of price cut.
The other relief can be happened is that the emerging of Indian rupee as a strong currency against dollar. India’s inflation rate came last was 3.92 percent. Inflation in the downward trend means currency strengthens. RBI will also take steps to make rupee strong. This move will ease gold price.
But the main thing should curb carefully is the speculation. Speculation should be controlled by the authorities for at least short term in order to avoid the price hike (but this would never happen!). There should be some limit in taking positions or should make some restriction in terms of delivery taking. But this is not possible in the recent future. Which means gold will continue to be common man’s hurdle. And this will continue so.

HOW MALAYALAM MOVIES ARE SPOILED BY IT'S OWN STARS

Earlier it was the synonym for good cinema in the country. It had bagged almost all the awards given to movies and persons associated with it for many years, competitors were far behind. It had given birth to so many world famous writers, actors and renowned film personalities. It got matured when all others in the country were in their infant stage. Thanks to those visionaries, who had fashioned it in such a way so that everybody started analyzing it and began learning lessons from it. I am talking about the Malayalam movie industry. But time had passed. Film making had become a profitable business in these years. The film viewing population showed an upward trend. At the beginning film viewing was in apartheid like communism in the state of kerala but with out much delay films had become a popular media.
But the film industry in kerala is going through difficult situations in these days. India in common and south India in particular had a mania called star worshipping. It’s like a disease in almost all the southern parts of the country. We had seen silver screen stars became chief ministers of Andhra and Tamilnadu, there the star worshipping had reached it’s peak that the fans are ready to give up even their lives for their favorite heroes. Stars exploited the man power behind them and used it for their political gains. Kerala, which was the Mecca of good films in the past was away from this practice of metamorphasizing it’s movie stars into politicians, since the state was politically literate.
If we analyze the mania of star worshipping with a magnifying lens we will be able to notice that education is going to do nothing with this disease. The anthropology of Indians are now associated with movies and cricket.
But is the star worshipping good for movies?. In kerala scenario things are something more sophisticated. Kerala don’t had the practice of star worshipping at the early stage. Now the Malayalam movie stars themselves are purposefully injecting the habit into the movie watchers at their expense. There may be political dreams behind it but the immediate effect they want is stopping others to come to the limelight of the movie industry. There is a star and technicians cocas, which is determining the whereabouts of a movie.
The two big names in the Malayalam movie industry are Mohanlal and Mammootty. They are leading the dictatorship in the film industry of this film loving state. Some one and half years before there was a crisis in the Malayalam movie industry. This was actually a crisis arised out of lack of good movies. (But the industry somehow managed to overcome the crisis, the industry owes the credit to shakkeela, maria and reshma jodi and their half porn movies.). Then came the real crisis of Malayalam cinema. Raajamanikyam said to be the biggest hit in Mammootty’s career graph. This was made possible because of the high voltage promotion of the movie through fans associations. Mammooty just made a step forward in promoting himself he published a magazine called mammooty times. (He started his blog on the very first day of this year, where he writes articles about so called serious topics, trying to establish himself as a successful blogger from the film arena after Big B Amitabh Bachchan).
Mohanlal on the other hand has earlier proved that he is a specimen for business. He has launched Mohanlal’s taste buds earlier and then started a dubbing studio. Now he is the brand ambassador and promoter of Hedge equities. A broking company formed when the markets touched it’s recent lows. Through the ads of the company he says knowledge is important for successful investment. The sad thing is that once they were prophets of good movies and were part of them but now they are not promoting such kinds of movies. In fact they are ready to do movies with award winning directors!. They even not promoting the newcomers as well. Amma and Macta are the prominent unions of Malayalam movie artists. recently film director Vinayam alleged that Mammootty of removing members of a particular union from sets just because they are members. The caucus is so strong that they can even remove such a senior artist Thilakan from acting in movies. Now he is acting in sidelined movies. Mammootty and Moahanlal are like trees in a giant forest where they will not allow other trees to grow.

Why kerala is so much interested in movies it is not because some brilliant directors were born here. Apart from that they tried to impart film education among the people not only in the urban area but also in the rural area. In early 70s film society movement started in kerala which had got tremendous support from the people. Then came the films from Adoor Gopalakrishnan (not now a days export quality ones but real classic ones). Aravindan and Padmarajan made cinemas out of passion. John Abraham the realistic director made cinema with the money from people. These efforts altogether promoted good cinemas in the coconut land. In 80s, the period identified as the romantic period of Malayalam movies, many promising personalities came into the lime light. Later they became pillars of the industry. Modernization of the industry happened after the first half of 90s.
The star mania came in the industry only in late 90s and it became powerful after 2000. Devaasuram, a feudal story directed by I.V Sasi starring Mohanlal was the landmark movie which laid the foundation of star dictatorship in the industry. (Devaasuram introduced a new alcohol drinking style also).Then came the same stretch movies by Shaji Kailas, who successfully established Hindu icons in movies and it became popular. On the other hand Mammootty tried to became versatile he danced and sang but all proved to be burden over him. But he somehow managed to maintain the post of superstar along with Mohanlal. Then they began ruling the film industry.
If an aspiring director approaches these stars. They will fix all the technicians and even actors according to their taste. They will rewrite the script and will change the concept of the movie. They even fix the budget and the locations (where they can easily reach in their own vehicle). If the newcomer do not agree with it the project skips. If they have any disagreement they will fire the respective actor out. Finally good films never happen only Superstar show offs will happen. In this situation you cannot see a film like Paruthiveeran or Subrahmanniyapuram from kerala. You will be forced to watch below average films with your expense!. The superstars are spoiling Malayalam films in all sense.