Glittering diamond set in gold is every woman perfect dream. It is this dream to fulfill drives many men and women crazy. This herald is to slow down the pace of those many a man and woman.
Lets begin by going to where it all starts!
Apaza starts his morning chewing cocoa leaves, mumbling a prayer in his native Quechua language; begins descending a 17000 feet icy tunnel at one of the Peruvian Andes. He crawls down the passage slowly, fearlessly ignoring explosives, toxic gases, tunnel collapses just to extract tiny bits of gold ore as a unit workforce to meet global demands. He does this without pay like foolish than gutsy businessman to receive a paltry sum on the 31st day of the month; that is if he receives the ore. Called cachorreo- an ancient lottery system prevalent in the Andes guarantees you a sum at month end only if successful (if possible at work, it is every Managers dream come true).
Auric the chemical symbol for gold transcends beauty, power, wealth and fame; it has fueled many wars, wiped dynasties, destabilized economies, leveled land and forests. Every society through ages has invested in gold with an almost mythological power. Gold is said to bring immortal powers. A plenty of Chinese and English fables denote the mysterious power of gold.
Gold in present years has not lost any of its charm. It affects the present power force - stock markets heavily. Small fluctuations in price sways the indices nearly a percentage at the minimum. Peter Bernstein author of Power of Gold rightly says “Gold has this kind of magic. But it’s never been clear if we have gold – or gold has us”. Investors have become a little smarter and have taken a step further. They don’t run after physical gold now, but fund companies procuring the gold in a quest to make a quicker buck. In 2007 alone 53.5 Billion dollars worth of gold was sold. There are snail activist campaigns like “No Dirty Gold” in US persuading top jewelers to sell gold from mines that cause environmental and social damage.
In all of recorded information nearly 161000 tons of gold has been mined, only enough to fill two Olympic sized swimming pools of which half has been extracted in the past five decades. Now these precious deposits are fast depleting and gold is being reared from the fragile corners of the globe. The work force however doesn’t seem to have diminished. Large equipments so ironic to their name like the Caterpillar sized at 21 feet long and 43 feet high can nearly scoop of a mile wide pit of mud in non noticeable time. These gashes look like moon craters when viewed from space. Large gold mining companies bring in the Caterpillar and station them at places near dormant volcanoes or places where they find traces of copper which is always found with gold.
Gold mining generates more waste per ounce than any metal. Extracting a single ounce of gold – an equal amount for the wedding ring – requires removal of more than 250 tons of rock and ore. Newmont, a Denver based mining giant now operates over five continents, from lowlands of Ghana to uneven Andes. Companies like Newmont cause ecological destructions, forced relocations pushing the villagers further into the forest.
Manpower at an improvised and organized gold mine include boys not more than 15 years sluicing for gold. Four percent of Ghana is officially owned by mining companies. A gory figure of 25% of the gold hunger worldwide is satisfied illegally. Many miners at mines don’t officially exist. There are no payrolls – just cachorreo if you bring in gold ore. The lucky few miners can earn upto 3000 dollars per year. This is nearly equal to the amount of time he has lost in life breathing toxics. Mercury used for separating gold from rock accounts for one third of global mercury toxic waste. After torching a bag full of ore carried down from the high hilled mines a merchant at the base extracts 1.1 gms of gold barely enough to feed the miner for a day. The myth that gold brings immortality comes at the cost of the miner’s mortality.
Gold obsession in India is frenzied. China doesn’t stay too far in this race. It surpassed America consuming 363.3 tons. Indian figures stand at 773.6 tons (statistical data of 2007)! Even though a per capita income of less than 2700 dollars, Indians proudly are in love with gold more than money. Akshay Tritriya an auspicious gold buying day in the Hindu calendar gulped 49 tons of gold in a day. Gold among us is a symbol of independence and upward mobility.
It is not only that diamonds come from shedding blood. Gold has a similar origin!
