Snehalata, lovingly known as sneha, had very little idea as to what her life would go through in the next twenty years of her marriage. Born into a well educated family, based in Kolkata, Sneha was married off to a boy, who was carefully chosen by her parents based on academic credentials and a secured government job. Bhaskar, the groom, worked as a Lecturer of Linguistics in Benares Hindu University. The matrimonial ceremony took place in the early eighties. When Sneha landed into the holy city of Varanasi, she beleived it to be sacred in terms of starting a new life with Bhaskar. Indeed, it was as within four years of her marriage, she was blessed with a daughter and a son. Things did turn in her favour for a while.

As Sneha enjoyed watching her children grow up, she witnessed her literary skills being materialized. Sneha, earlier a student of humanities, loved theatre and had always wanted to write scripts for drama. Unfortunately, soon after her graduation, she was married and the dream of scripting a drama never took off. However, with her husband’s support, Sneha had come to meet some theatre actors and students of the University, who actively participated in the same. She started participating in theatre workshops and stage shows so as to learn basics of staging a play. Keerti, an active student participant, did help Sneha to grasp the basics of script writing. Later, Sneha, started assisting Keerti in script writing in few of her plays. Her assistance to Keerti did help her gain a foothold in the art of scriptwriting. This encouraged her and very soon she started writing scripts independently, which got edited by her husband before being portrayed on stage.

Within a span of ten years Sneha had everything one could possible have from life. A happy family, a flourishing career as a theatre script writer and an amicable social circle. Nonetheless, the joy was short lived.

It was her daughter’s, Prerna’s, eighth birthday and Sneha, being the host to her birthday party, was busy in making arrangements. To add a special touch to the food, dance and music, arrangements were made for some drama as well. Prerana’s freinds were given a topic, a day before her birthday, to write upon and submit on the D day. The write ups were to be assesed by the birthday girl, with the assistance of her mother and the winner was to get a special gift. This did add to the growing excitement buzz amongst Prerana’s freind circle.

Prerana, was a sensitive and a caring child. She never got excited with the concept of birthday bashes as she thought this made her mother work very hard. Even on the day of her birthday, she pitied her as she saw her running errands for her perfect birthday party. She wondered how she could help her mother with the arrangements. Inspite of a number of requests she succeeded to fetch a cup of tea for her mother. Sneha had told Prerana to get a cup of tea from the kettle kept in the kitchen. This had lifted Prerana’s spirits and she was pleased to get atleast one, though insignificant, but a job. She went into the kitchen to find the kettle with tea filled in. The tea was ice cold and needed to the warmed and so the requirement was fulfilled by Prerana. At that time her six years old brother had barged into the kitchen in the hope of catching a glimpse of the birthday cake. Even Prerana wanted to badly but she knew that her mother had placed it somewhere beyond their reach for a surprise. The children thought of searching for it with the promise that not either of them would leak it out to their mummy. Prerana did not have the slightest inkling about the tea, which was now boiling on the stove. When a faint burning smell filled the room, then the children looked around to realize the source of the smell. With the fear of being caught, Roni, Prerana’s baby brother fled from the kitchen. However, Prerana, in a state of panic, touched the kettle with bare hands and it fell on the kitchen floor with a loud bang. However, she forgot to put out the stove and then the catastrophe happened. While Prerana was busy scrutinizing her fault on the floor, the stove caught hold of Prerana’s new birthday frock’s belt. Within a fraction of second, before the child could realize what was it happenning, flames had gulped her in her new dress.

Sneha heard the banging sound and rushed to the kitchen to only see her daughter’s vain efforts to free herself from the merciless fire. She screamed and yelled for help but in vain. Screams had made Sneha’s neighbours break into the house to find the pathetic state of Sneha lying unconscious next to a charred body. The year was 1994, which marked the onset of tragedies into Sneha’s life.

Barely after five years of the fateful event, Sneha lost her husband. The loss of an eight year daughter had made more impact on the mind of the father due to which he had slipped into depression. Along with depression, Bhaskar’s body became plagued with other complications as well. Abnormalities like diabetes and heart blockage had invaded the body. As a consequence, the body soon surrenedered to these malfunctionings in the year 1999. After Bhaskar’s demise, Sneha had hardly any spirit to live but still she fought for the sake of her son, Roni.

Sneha had very little financial help to support her one child family. The university did give her some amount of compensation for the loss of her husband but the amount was not enough to sustain for a longer duration. However, she didn’t loose hope and took up a school job. She had bid farewell to her career of scriptwriting, which did not do well due to her lack of time and devotion. Her family and freinds saw her juggling hard in order to balance her new professional life and a teenage son. If on one hand she was balancing to study for her B.ed then on other hand she was trying to make her son study.

In an attempt to meet the demands of a professional teacher, Sneha failed to give Roni proper attention towards his studies and extracurricular activities. Resultantly, Roni, like any other teenager, found it hard to cope up with his studies after seeing so much in the life of his mother. This had serious effects on his life. At the tender age of fourteen, Roni slipped into unsocial activities in school like taking drugs. Further at the age of sixteen, he was caught cheating in his exams which led to his suspension from school in 2004. Inspite of the suspension orders, Sneha requested her school’s prinicipal and other fellow colleagues to give a chance to her son so that he could atleast give his tenth standard exam. Sneha wanted to save her child from further humility and so wanted one last oppourtunity to be given to him. She understood that the child had gone through a lot.

Roni, on the other hand, was fed up of his life, fed up of his mother bearing so much of insult and harrassment on his behalf. He decided to put an end to all of this and relieve his mother of any more accusations and complaints. The year 2005 saw the end of the boy’s life. Roni committed suicide by consuming pesticide followed by a glass of warm milk, which had killed him instantly. Children like Roni do not realise as to what repurcussions their actions have on their parents. He too did not realise that his mother, Sneha had turned into a lifeless form. She had quit school and stopped seeing anyone including her neighbours, freinds and even her relatives as well. She had even stopped eating for a while and also had thought of ending her life as well. However, god had other plans for her. Sneha’s brother, Rehaan, who worked in Kolkata, helped her to crack the cocoon in which she lived then.

In 2006, Rehaan decided to bring Sneha back to Kolkata so as to give her a break and a change of place as well. Kolkata, being Sneha’s hometown relaxed her a bit but not much. By then she had lost her parents and felt uncomfortable around the new life in Kolkata. However, Rehaan knew her sister and had faith in the saying that time was a good healer and soon would fill the gaps of her life. He was right.

Today, in the year 2008 as I see Sneha, alone in her new home, I feel she has come a long way. She now works in rehabilitating poor slum children of her area through an NGO. In the process of this rehabilitation, she too has rehabilitated herself and has come above the rest. Inspite of loosing so much in life, she still is fighting to keep her spirit alive. She may not have acheived anything in life but still has been a winner. I am honoured to be associated with such a woman and my salutations to women like Sneha.

It is indeed an irony. As human beings, we learn to appreciate life but forget to appreciate the people behind the creator of our lives.When a child learns his first expression, it is usually ‘Ma’ or ” Pa’. The child sees life through the eyes of his creator, his parents and relates to the people, the surroundings through their eyes. The very feeling of being precious and special comes from them. The feeling of being needed is aroused by them and that is how the sensibility and the sensitivity towards the same is developed in a child. They are the ones who develop an aesthetic sense in us so that we are in a position to appreciate the beauty of life. Soon after birth, a mother develops a protective cocoon around her child. A cocoon which very effectively develops one into an emotionally strong human being. This protective shield is so strong and has such miraculous calming effect that even after growing up, as an adult one can still easily get relieved by one’s parents comforting words and feel preotected.

However, it is a pity that such comforting words are not extended to them when they need us. Our parents never turned down our needs when we were small, never failed to extend physical support when we didn’t even know how to walk, understood us much before we learnt to speak and most imporatantly loved us with all our mistakes. Why can’t we be the same to them??Why do we have to turn them down at a stage when they are physically and emotionally helpless? Have we ever thought how we would have felt had they turned us down at the time of our crisis. What if this were the same situation for us at your old age??

We feel it is only our duty to make a name and identity for ourselves in this world through professional work. Its a good thought indeed cause we will be eventually be remebered for our work. But work is not just pertaining to the professional sphere, its applicable on our contributions in our personal lives as well. After all if we don’t have a a healthy family life, it will eventually affect our workfront too.

Maybe after reading this writeup many will feel about it strongly and some may ignore it as a general writeup. For such people I have a request, kindly close your eyes and think about your old age for just 10 minutes. Scared or concerned?? Then please start making this effort today. Try and help the ageing and ailing around you cause after all what goes in comes back. Believe me spending quality time with them will enlighten you and seeing their smiles will make you feel once again special.

I along with my mother went to some of the renowned jewellery shops in the south western part of the city. The shops shone brilliantly with a grand display of bold jewellery pieces and effective use of lightening. However, the lightening seemed to fade away as the actual gold price was discovered. The price then stood at a whopping thirteen thousand rupees for every ten grams of gold. Before that day, I never bothered to find as to why the gold prices had soared to such an extent. Later, as I spoke to a few people, I learnt the truth.

The US sub prime crisis leading to a declining US dollar has a direct impact on the pricing of gold and a few other commodities. Ever since the sub prime crisis occurred, the nation’s trade and budget deficits have been on a rise. As a result, foreign investors have turned apprehensive of investing in US and started investing in non-dollar investments. Exporters of different currencies have started billing their exporters in currencies other than the US dollar. Hedge funds have reduced their investment in the US stocks and bonds and are increasing investments in commodities including precious metals as a hedge against the decline in the US dollar. Hence, gold market was identified as a potential sphere of investment and since 2003, the spot gold has risen by nearly 160 per cent. Over the past few years, emerging countries like India and China are witnessing a consistent growth in foreign portfolio flows. While, BSE sensex rose by 320 per cent between 2003-2007, the US dollar index plumetted 25 per cent during the period. . Thus, US dollar’s decline and a spurt in gold prices is due to the slowdown of the US economy.

Infact a direct relationship between gold and a weaker US dollar can be established. Crude oil is quoted in US dollares and so are most of the metals and soft commodities. If the US dollar declines, the net receivables of the crude oil producing nations fall. Consequently, crude oil and commodity prices rise as they are mostly quoted in US dollars. Higher commodity prices lead to higher infalation and the cycle continues till US dollar depreciates and switches away from quoting commodities in US dollar.

Most of the Central banks have set up Sovereign Wealth Funds so that huge foreign exchange reserves, mostly in US dollars, are invested elsewhere for better returns.In addition to this, more and more countries are resorting to bilateral trade instead of multilateral trade, which is not billed in US dollars. India has various free trade agreements wherein one need not bill their exports or imports in US dollar. One of reasons behind the option of bilateral trade is to hedge one’s net receivables from the US dollar decline, which is the key medium of exhange in global trade.

Another factor driving the prices of gold is the slump in global goldmine production. The problems are best typified by the world’s largest producer, South Africa, where mines face declining ore grades and rising costs as they push extremes at depths of 2.5 miles down. In 1970, South Africa had produced 1000 tonnes of gold to only let it fall to a quarter of this by 2007. Where new mines have been identified, producers have been beset by resource natianlism and grave disease like AIDS(affecting nearly one-third o mineworkers). In short, new mines are neither being found or developed to replace the ageing and the largeley depleted mines. Poor supply of gold is unable to meet the rising gold demand and is pushing the price of the metal to an all time high. Indian gold demand is expected to rise even as gold prices near $900 per ounce. Infact to meet the global demand, Shanghai stock exchange will soon open doors to gold futures trading leading to a greater demand from China. Thus, this shows that how effectively the Chinese economy switches to domestic demand-led growth from export-led growth. As a result, the chinese gold demand is likely to receive a boost. Following the footsteps of the chinese eceonomy. India too is on the way of Gold exchange traded funds, which are ususally backed by investment in gold. Instead of purchasing gold from the market and storing it, an investor can invest in GETF and indirectly oen gold. These will offer a means of diversification to the retail investor. However, investments in the funds will depend upon the returns in other finanacial instruments, which when offer better returns may turn the invetsors away from GETF’s.

With the hope that gold continues to cash on the US economic recession, I can definetely do justice by being one of the potential investors in this new global investment arena.