Balancing Act

Starting October, the celebration time in India has just begun. From 2nd October which is celebrated as Mathma Gandhi's Birthday a slew of festivals and holidaying starts and continues right till New Year. This year has been no different apart from the fact that the global crises has firmly gripped the nations and those affected by the turmoil will have really hard time gathering their finances, leave apart holidaying. On Friday i.e. 10/10/08 the Bombay Stock exchange fell by almost 800 points, about 7 % of investors wealth wiped out in a day and about 16% in just a week. India was relatively better off as some of the Asian peers fell as much as 30% in just a week.

Amids this gloom and doom scenario any thinking individual cannot escape the though of ephemeral nature of the wealth in the new economy. The very premises of seeing is believing is being questioned because had that been the case big co operations like Lehman Brothers, Merrile Lynch, Wachovia Corp., Morgan Stanly, AIG and so on would be the most sought after jobs in campuses around the world. The report in newspaper today says that the Indian Steel Tycoon Mr. Lakshmi Milttal is loosing 7 Million Pounds every hour since last one week. 

In India, industrial growth has slowed drastically.In Sweden, Volvo is cutting thousands of jobs. In Japan, which thought it was immune to the market chaos, a credit squeeze seems to be forcing small companies into bankruptcy. Around the world, fears of recession have fed a stock market panic, as worries about toxic assets spread from the financial sector to the credit markets and now to the broader economy.

These events makes you realize the vulnerability of anything and everything in today's times....the most pertinent point is it makes you realize who is in control??

Who is in control ? is the question that keeps coming to me and however hard i have tried, i have never been able to answer it convincingly.  A vist to the Mountains, Beaches, Valleys etc makes you realize how powerful the forces of nature are and probably what has happened over the past few days is a balancing act. Surely nature has its own way of funtioning.........

As we go on to celebrate Durga Puja, kali Puja, Diwali, Christmas, New Year and more, the world events should not dampen our spirts. Infact it should reinforce our believes knowing fully well that the real controls are with some else.....

Contributed by Sac