Hi! I’m an Indian woman. Ahem, a typical one at that. The moment I start dating a man, I start thinking of marriage and kids. I love soppy love sagas, be it on the big screen or small, and well — need I say it? — I love gold. I share this unique quality with most of my Hindustani behnas. Yes, this is one interest that binds us together and cuts across boundaries of class, community and language.
I can’t describe enough our collective delirious delight when we behold gold. The yellow metal has a mesmerising and magnetic effect on our psyche. Honestly, when Sigmund Freud was researching the complexity of the female mind and conducted a study to answer the question ‘what do women want?’, he should have done a recci of hamari India. A random survey among women would have yielded the answer easy and obvious — Gold! If love is lust spelt wrong, then in the case of gold, we women take the cake, the oven, the baker and the bakery.
Actually this affinity is genetically programmed. It starts in the womb and why… ends in the tomb! Why else would you find frail old ladies, barely able to hold on to their walking sticks, still wearing large gold hoops in their ears and thick, solid bangles on their wrinkly arms. In fact, my dadima used to tell us stories of how she managed to smuggle in her gold safely to India when our Dera-Ismail-Khan (now in Pakistan) was being ravaged by the mob during the Partition. She hid copious quantities of her gold in huge jars in which mango pickle was stored and no one even noticed when she carried her booty to safety. This goes down in the footnotes of history as the most expensive mango-pickle known to humankind. While I’m sure you are marvelling at Dadi’s ingenuity, I guess it was a woman’s instinct at work.
The common rationale for buying this expensive metal that embraces the bank locker more than your neck is that it offers security and can be re-sold in case of a crisis. But trust me, we women are such hoarders that it will take something as colossal as World War II for us to part with our treasure trove.
{{/usCountry}}The common rationale for buying this expensive metal that embraces the bank locker more than your neck is that it offers security and can be re-sold in case of a crisis. But trust me, we women are such hoarders that it will take something as colossal as World War II for us to part with our treasure trove.
{{/usCountry}}Look at language too: it has incorporated ‘sona’ as meaning not just gold, but beautiful as well. Popular culture also endorses it: remember Shammi Kapoor serenading the voluptuous Asha Parekh with the song ‘O mere sona re’? Give me gold, and I’ll give you a woman who loves it.