What’s with this yellow metal I say?

Its in the air, on the airwaves,buried in print, making News, across Hoardings ....its practically everywhere and its lucre seems inescapable. And like MacKenna & Co’s rush to gold in the Hollywood classic, Bangaloreans made a dash to the Gold shops in town on Akshaya Tritiya day recently. Adding to the hysteria was a sustained advertisement campaign by a local prominent jewelery export house that had just forayed into gold retailing. This guy went hammer & tongs in the media about his ‘no making charges’ scheme with elaborate explanations that appeared like one of those advertorials carried out by ministry of information & broadcasting . Before I could find some sensible echoes in the grey hills to this phenomenon, Wifi had coolly exchanged her pair of gold earrings to a new pair at a local gold shop in Udipi. Her mom in tow and the obvious enamor created by the local jewelery shop led her to an irresistible offer to exchange gold ‘just’ at the cost of making charges and the extra wee bits of ounces that went into the new one.

Meanwhile as I commute to work every day all the marketing blitzkrieg about this madness seems to be misdirected at this hapless soul. But i do soak in the proverbial gold dust that is thrown by the hoardings along the way, almost 1/3rd of which I believe relate to Gold & Jewelery. As I pass through atleast 1-2 traffic junctions everyday, I am greeted by luscious looking damsels on hoardings extolling one or the other brand of very fine ornate gold n jewellery. One recent hoarding reminded me of Rajiv Gandhi’s message to the Pakis in the mid 80s (Unko unki Naani yaad dila deenge types). This hoarding by Canara Robeco reminded me about my naani and urged me to invest like her perhaps, the ad is about a new fund by Canara Robeco that encourages investors to invest like one's grandmother would. It shows a grandmotherly lady resplendently decked up with gold necklaces. While on another recent day ‘Madhavan’ (the film actor) passed by me with a benign smile & folded hands inviting me to the house of Alukkas (a gold retailer from kerala who set shop in Blr recently), he was of course plastered across a large Van which served as a mobile bill board . This Van incidentally overtook me on the busy Sampige road (Malleswaram) , which as you enter is lined with many Gold shops (popularly called gold palaces) reminding one what it would like entering Kubera’s den.

All this and like many in US (which goes from one bust and bailout to the next), I have now come to think, that only ‘Gold , God & Guns’ can save us from imminent economic recession, depression or collapse.