All That glitters is not gold. The only thing that gold does is glitter.

After the recent surge in gold prices I began wondering what made gold the last bastion of hope for all investors. Not even crude oil earned this respect. First ill start off by analyzing about gold. What is gold? Its an element with an atomic number of 79. It shows metal like properties. Its highly malleable and ductile. Its lustrous and its chemically nonreactive with most common chemicals and its quite rare (probably these might be its greatest and only virtues). It has no other worthy properties to extol about.

So what made this such a sought after commodity? Probably to answer that question we might have to go back in time. Since time immemorial man has been fascinated by gold (dont ask me why its been only gold and not anything else) Basically this fascination led man to start decorating himself with gold. Gold started to become a commodity of desire for mankind. The kings and queens of long gone dynasties began fancying gold and diamonds. Since they were like the rockstars of that era there was no questioning about the beauty or the awesomeness of gold. This fascination simply started to grow over time. Its rarity and chemical inertness ensured that it continued to be out of reach (hence the aspiration) of the common man.

This made gold (and silver) the choice of kings for minting coins ( with all the royal paraphernalia stamped on it) . We might recall how valiant attempts, by ingenous idiots like Muhammad Bin Thuglaq , to mint coins with copper caused serious counterfeiting problems. This made the sovereign(the monarch to be precise) to loose control of the economy , which means they loose a lot of tax and they have no money for their opulence and to fund their armies. Thus as previously stated its rarity proved to gold's greatest asset.

The practice of gold coins were prevalent in many civilization based on the amount of trading they did and the availability of gold. For instance if gold was a very very rare resource (even by normal standards) then the people saw it fit to use paper currency which was backed by gold. If the particular area relied a lot on foreign trade then gold continued to be a standard medium of barter (which is quite evident from the amount of gold which was found in the Padmanadhaswamy temple in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala being one of the most ancient trading posts of the world which traded with almost every civilization in the world)

Finally due to a huge restriction in the number of gold coins that could possibly be minted with gold and the huge trouble of transporting gold for minting caused governments to move to the gold standard. Where in the government holds gold backing and prints currency equivalent to the value of the gold it holds. This system allowed people to redeem their cash to gold when ever they choose. The value of the currency in gold was fixed by the government. This caused huge problems of smuggling (legally smuggling , you could take with you a thousand pounds from London to Hongkong or Singapore which was a part of the British Empire and exchange the cash for gold, this was as good as smuggling) . Due to the this countries kept switching on and off the gold standards during war and peace times.

Then finally after to WW2 the Brettons Wood system was introduced by US among the Allied nations in order to build the accelerate the growth of the ailing economies. This is essentially like all the economies of the world will not back their currency with gold but with US dollars while US while follow the gold standard. (once again gold)

This put such a huge pressure on the US economy to maintain gold reserves. Nixon during his presidency kicked out the Bretton Woods system and made the dollar a FIAT CURRENCY. A fiat curency is a type fo currency which ahs no backing in gold or anything but just the promise of the federal government to honor the currency. (thats why there was a huge huge furor when S and P downgraded US treasury bonds (which is as bad as downgrading the dollar) ,its just a question of trust)

Well you might wonder to what purpose this boring lecture on economics serves. The bottom line im trying to drive is that Mr.Gold manages to survive and sustain as mankind's most favorite muse for the entire period of human evolution. Well I can understand it if the folks back in the bronze age admired gold the fact that people continue to admire it is simply amazing (given that currency is completely decoupled from gold). This admiration is probably forcing investors to still see gold as a very safe investment. (as gold has no other intrinsic value)

Think of it, money which could be used by investors to fund R and D and to fund new industries , because of the uncertainties in the economy is being transferred into GOLD!! What is adding value to gold?? not its use in the industry, not its ability to generate electricity, not its ability to feed the millions of starving people and definitely not its ability to be beaten into wafer thin chips. The thing which is adding value to gold is the fact that human beings covet it.

After having said all this, what I still dont understand is WHY IN GOD'S NAME DO PEOPLE STILL GET ATTRACTED TO GOLD? ! Can someone please tell me why?

Nagalapuram

Nagalapuram, a forest range doted with ponds, waterfalls and streams , was the target destination for the Fellowship of Foolhardy Trekkers (core constituents being Adith, Anand, Charunethran and yours faithfully) for about 2 months. We were collecting information on that trek for the entire period of these 2 months meeting nothing but dead ends. This place had very very little information on it. When enquired the CTC folks warned us against going on this trek by ourselves as it was quite risky. Born brave fools, we decided not to be deterred by these petty issues and decided to go ahead on this trek with the amount of info we had. The primary reason for this post is to ensure that people , who plan their treks to Nagalapuram, are better informed.

Route to Nagalpuram

Follow this map till Nagalapuram village .

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?doflg=ptk&ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=204146848897547296467.00049cf6c79579594a6dc&ll=13.215882%2C80.031281&spn=0.359631%2C0.676346&z=11

Once you reach Nagalapuram ask for a village called TP Kotah. You have to take a narrow tar road to TP Kotah. Its about 10 kms from Nagalapuram. Once you get to Kotah ask people for the way to the "picnic spot" thats wat they call the trek route. The "picnic spot" has a temple too. So you can ask for the route to the temple near the dam if u feel bad abt using the words picnic spot. you will be pointed towards a very very littered mud road. We were highly sceptical about that road but there was no choice but to take that road. That road will stretch for about 2-3 kms through very rough patches of mud roads(thanks to Adith's diligence the car survived) and you have to keep driving till you see a temple. The car can be parked near the temple and from this point you have to start trekking.

The first thing you will see is a decently sized reservoir. you have to take the path which leads into the mountains here. Once you start trekking you wont see any streams/water bodies for almost half an hour. You need to keep taking the path which leads you downhill (and i think towards north im not very sure though). There wont be huge confusions till you reach one particular point where the path will fork out. At this point we thankfully found a arrow marking the direction we had to take. So look out for such arrows when you are confused. You will bump into a stream after about30-45 mins (depending on your pace) Once you reach this point you might think its very easy and that you will just need to follow the stream. This is where you will get realllly lost (we got lost so i assume you will make the same mistakes) . The path in this trail (unlike that in Tada) is not very well trodden upon. So most times there wont be a clear cut path. So you have a high chance of getting lost or mislead. So you will have to remember the points where you took wrong turns and retrace to that point and try the other road.

Our Story

We started at around 530 AM and made it to the parking space near the temple at about 930 am (all thanks to a damn traffic jam at Koyembedu which took us 30 mins to cross). We got hopelessly lost about 2 times on our way to the fabled Nagalapuram Pool 1. All thanks to our crazy perseverance to get to the pool against all odds we managed to somehow reach pool 1. This took us almost 1.5 hours. Exhausted and a little freaked out by the pathless jungle we decided to be contended with the 1st pool. We spent about an hour there. Finally we decided to trace our way back to the car. Ironically we managed to take a wrong turn even on our return journey. We somehow reached our car (which was in perfectly safe state) and found our way back to Singara Chennai.

This trek was a very very exciting(and a little scary) experience for us noob trekkers. We realised why CTC junta adviced us against going alone. To completely enjoy nature's beauty you need to go with CTC. To have an awesome and adventurous experience you must plan and go by yourselves.

Follow the pack

On the 3rd of April 2011 the Indian Team won the ICC cricket world cup. The entire country burst into celebration. People are yelling "We rule the world" (I guess that sad chap did not read the Wikileaks. We are being ruled by the Americans in a completely indirect way) That is when I began thinking why this victory means so much to the people while the laurels won by Indian athletes in other avenues are mostly over looked.

Vishwanathan Anand has been one of the most consistent sportsman for India.The last time he played a major chess trophy there was not even a broadcast leave alone a celebration for his victory. People might argue that his victories dont evoke the sense of national pride as it is just one mans achievement (it can be argued that the cricket world cup is the achievement of 11 men and nothing more). Okay then lets look into another game which involves the effort of a team : Hockey. Some might point out that the hockey team hardly ever wins. Well that was how cricket was in India 10 years back. We lost a match to Zimbawe a couple of world cups back. Even when the hockey team won a major tournament (the Azlan Shah trophy) I dont remember people celebrating. In fact hardly anyone knew that the hockey team won. Those players dint get their fair share of recognition.

If it is said that we support cricketers because the BCCI is stinking rich and the tournaments carry a heavy purse with it thats the case with the Tennis tournaments as well. I dont see many people cheering the Davis cup teams. I might be wrong here but I think we as a nation celebrate cricket (and only cricket) because of a mob mentality. People just want to join the band wagon of "The Men in Blue" supporters.

These tendencies can be found in many other events. For example the elections. We dont want to vote for an independent candidate because we think most other wont vote for that person thus we should not as well. This I think is another example of our mob mentality. Another glaring example is the way we watch movies. Producers are willing to invest even upto 200 crores for movies in which Rajni acts (even though the story line sucks big time) is because they know we will watch that movie. We do watch that because "everyone" watches it.

Is it possible that we as Indians possess only a collective identity and totally lack an individual line of thought??? i dont think so. We have produced some of the most remarkable people who have helped to shape the world with their very unique ideas, but I think a good many people in this country suffer from the "follow the pack" syndrome.....

A finite world with infinite opportunities ...

I started framing fundas for quizzes 4 or 5 years back. One of my primary fears those days used to be my ability to keep churning out questions. Just as Vitalstatix feared that the sky might fall on his head the tomorrow (and convinced himself that tomorrow never comes) I feared that I might run out of fundas tomorrow. One fine morning I came across Wikipedia (mankind's greatest initiative). Once i started ploughing into that site did I realized how huge the world actually is. I still cant come to terms with the quantum of knowledge that we as human beings gained in just about 3000 years of recorded history.

This realization rather changed the way I looked at life as a whole. I realized that I will run out of fundas only when i stop searching for them. The world has simply unlimited reservoir of fundas ( at various levels ie. simple , arbit , random etc :D ) but I simply dont see those around me. I could not help but drawing parallels to music. Carnatic Music has just 7 swaras (or basic sounds) has managed to generate infinite number of ragas. The ability to manipulate such a scarce resource to a mind boggling number of combinations shows human brilliance.

I started using this philosophy for other avenues of my life too. When I first joined Caterpillar I wondered the long term sustainability of such companies. I felt that were would be a day when there will be a day when all the mud and earth would be displaced and the resources underneath would be plundered and looted. I wondered whom will earth moving machinery companies like Caterpillar serve on that day. It was then that I realized that the company will start making products to put all the mud back in its original place or they might start digging in the moon. Ultimately I understood that the opportunities that are created (or discovered) are a function of human brilliance and ability to accept new ideas alone they are totally independent of the fact that we are endowed with a finite volume of resources (large though they might be). Ultimately what decides the future of human beings ( and ours as individuals) is our ability to make best use of the available finite resources to see the world of opportunities that awaits us.

Importance of Criticism

Recently I read an article in the Hindu editorial , written by Jaswant Singh. The main idea of the article was to defend BJP's actions in the parliament, which led to the total disruption of the Lok Sabha's winter session. What caught my attention in it were his views on democracy and how dissent is such an important part of a democratic setup. The exact text of the article is pasted.

"Why such profound failures? Perhaps, because our grievance redressal systems have ground to a halt; also because we have lost regard for each other, we have abandoned our sense of kinship and fraternity without which no parliamentary democracy can function. We have forgotten how to accommodate dissent, and the less we do so, the harsher it becomes. We no longer consider the alternative view-point as being even remotely relevant; instead, we now treat disagreement as a disservice, a rebellious challenge, which must either be totally rejected, or then crushed. The tone, tenor and the content of our language, of mutual address, government to opposition, or the other way round has become dryly ritualised, patronisingly rejectionist, emptied totally of the spirit of parliamentary democracy. The hierarchy of our concerns no longer harmonise; courtesy and accommodation to the opposing view point is treated as being ‘soft', a weakness. We no longer recognise the great relevance of the ‘intensity, passion, intimacy, informality and spontaneity of parliamentary debates'. Perhaps, the Hon'ble Prime Minister no longer recognises, or accepts, that it is this ‘passion' which constitutes the personality and the heartbeat of our (or any other) Parliament. This ‘passion' occasionally obscures, but often illuminates, too; it distracts, yes, but this then is both it's strength and its weakness. Parliament is an assembly of human beings; it must have human virtues, and vices and failings, it is not, must not ever be, just a container of ritualised nothingness. " -Jaswant Singh

What striked me the most is the relevance of this in our daily lives. How we need to lend a ear to what the other person has to say. The importance of true and honest criticism from friends and peers is something which is very rare to come by these days. The sad part is that often such criticism is treated just like Jaswant Singh said. Most people(which includes me) dont take it as a god given opportunity to mend our ways. In fact some people simply start hating the person who criticizes him or her. It is such an easy job to actually tell nice and flowery stuff about people , it is to criticize people that one needs some guts. Just like Jhonny Depp said in the Pirates of the Carribean "Honestly its the the guys who flatter that you must beware of"

The Trip to Tada

The trip to Tada, which we(Adith,Anand,Charu and yours faithfully) made after six months of contemplation and several false starts, was our first tryst with adventurism (however small it might be on the scale of adventurism ) . The trekking bug bite me after my trip to Sar Pass. The dudes', with whom I went to Sar Pass, never ending stories about Tada made me determined to vsit that place once atleast. It finally happened on the 1st of Jan of 2011 , a day which I will always remember.

We started from our homes at exactly 6:30 Am. After the usual set of wrong turns (which always happens with Adith) we managed to get into NH5. After that it was a straight road till Tada. Once we took a left at Tada and managed to ask our way to the falls. The road to the checkpost (to the falls) was quite good except for the final one kilometer which was more like a dirt track. We payed the toll for the cars and the cameras and proceeded to the parking space which is close to 2-3 kms from the check post. There was a security guard at the check post to take care of the cars. We took our bags (which had nothing but a spare set of clothes , chow and the cameras) and started our trek in high spirits. The initial distance (abt a coupla kms) was a flat dirt track. It was a really nice walk. Anand lost his glasses in one of the strams and managed to tear his shoes, which was repaired due to Adith ingenious idea(he wanted me to write this) Apart from this and a few other minor mishaps like Adith trying to push me while crossing one of the streams, we made it to the Sivan temple in good time (abt 45 mins). After this the trek started. There was no clear cut route after this point. We simply had to follow the stream. We were jumping from one rock to another like monkeys. The rain and the stream had made the rocks extremely slippery making it very very difficult to walk. I made the mistake of wearing the shoes which I had used for my Himalayan trek. The shoe was one of the major liability in this trek. I would say the best footwear for this trek would be your bear foot if it had not been for those numerous glass bottles generously strewn across the place. Anyways we made it after several slips into the stream (especially me. i fell into the water so many times that my clothes were wet even before we reached the falls) After a pretty tiring but short trek (more like amateur rock climbing) we manged to reach a small falls. People said that there was a bigger falls if we were ready to climb higher. Buddhist as we were, we decided to be contended with what we had. We goofed arnd in the small but extremely awesome falls for half an hour and decided to pack back home once we saw truck loads of people approaching the falls (with a lot of booze) . We carefully made our way back to the car park and returned home by 1730 hrs.

That was one real heck of a way to start the new year with friends. I felt the falls totally justified the trek.

Advisory

Never wear Hi funda sport or trekking shoes. Sandals would be more than enough.

Never go in the weekends it happens to be the boozing spot for lots of ppl.

Dont go wearing jeans ,you will get wet and end up carrying very heavy stuff back when u return. Wear simple shorts.

You wont get a morsel of food there so carry your own chow.

dont take too many cameras it will be a pain trying to protect them from the elements and the anti-socials (ya they will be there) just take one and keep it safe.

Why does Lennon still inspire a huge fan following??

After a long time i was a part of a meaningful discussion with some of my friends. The discussion was about why Paul McCartney does not enjoy the level of adulation that John Lennon does. WE all reached a conclusion that Lennon became famous because of anti-Vietnam campaign and his altercation with Nixon. It seemed to me a very fair conclusion to reach. Basically the only difference between Lennon and McCartney was that Lennon voiced his opinion about what he thought was bad while McCartney simply lived his life. So making this conclusion might seem a very good one based on these two.

Paul Newman, a very successful actor till the late 70's , was another major Anti-Vietnam activist. He also had earned the ire of Nixon and he was also listed in the infamous enemy list that Nixon had compiled. He does not seem to enjoy the celestial status that Lennon seems to enjoy. Most people wont have heard about Newman in the first place. Now comparing Newman and Lennon I simply cant make sense as to why one of them is being venerated by a generation of people , who were born after he died, while the other we have no idea about. I thought that Lennon's fame is still undiminished because he died at the peak of his career while Newman died at a very old age. This simply reminds me of the Dark Knight dialog "You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain" a small modification to it "You either die while famous and be remembered or live long enough to fade into oblivion" .