Akshay Tritiya: A legend cast in gold

Tik tok, tik tok. Is there a time bomb waiting to explode inside my rib cage? Feels like the day of reckoning is finally upon me. Why do I feel the same feeling this time of the year when newspapers and television channels begin to bleed gold, your inbox gets clogged with jewellery ads, and WhatsApp groups flaunt outré designs to lure the womenfolk to gold shops?

Every year, when Akshaya Tritiya, the annual spring festival and the most auspicious day for Hindus to buy gold, knocked on the door, I would hang my head in shame unable to face wifey’s stares. She would walk around with a ‘naked neck’, signalling with her silence that a woman is incomplete without gold. She took pains to present herself as a mannequin waiting to be adorned in gold in a run-of-the-mill boutique.

In hindsight, I feel I had been cruel. All her sighs within the four walls of our home failed to move me. In real life, I do not detest the yellow metal. I love all its sheen and glam as long as they stayed glued to the mannequin’s body parts. I also do not trivialise the value locked up in the asset class. But the legend of Akshaya Tritiya failed to change my resolve cast in metal. It’s the case of myth versus logic.

She looked over my shoulder as I scanned a tonne of jewellery fliers slipped under the door. I could feel her cold breath on my neck.

“Only two days left,” she fired aimlessly.

“I know, I got a Google reminder.”

“Google reminder? What are you talking about?”

“The power bill. May 14 is the last date.”

“May 14 has another significance.”

“Shucks! I forgot about it.”

“Another bill?”

“True. Utility bills in Bangalore.”

“Anything else on the fourteenth?”

“Oh my, thanks for reminding me.”

“It’s Puja’s birthday.”

“Oh, your new GF. Was it a Google reminder, or a date etched in gold? Anything else on the fourteenth?”

“My sister has a hospital appointment for Covid vaccination. Need to arrange a car back home.”

“Your bills, your GF, your sis. Hey mister, you clearly suffer from selective amnesia.”

“You seem to be in a bad mood, darling.”

“Don’t you see the fliers staring you in the face?”

“Yeah, the models look so exotic in those intricate ornaments.”

“As if the ornaments wouldn’t make me one.”

“Some look prettier with ornaments; some look as good without. Where to place yourself is a matter of perception.”

“Don’t you see the date, May 14, written in gold on the fliers?”

suresh@khaleejtimes.com