Gold's Own Country

It's a description about the Gold Crazy Culture of Kerala

Kerala also known as a metonymy as God’s Own Country (for being beautiful) can be put in a mild pejorative as Gold’s Own Country. The craze for gold extends to all sections and classes of society. A bride of any religion be it  adorns herself like an Atlas having gold all over her neck, not one, but many. Not only her neck, her feet, her nose, her ears and her hands are also adorned in Gold. Parents of brides have a tough time in finding the resources to buy Gold for their daughters. All expenses of marriage sad to say have to be borne by the bride’s family. Why is the consciousness of Gold a Cult? Many gold shops are thriving in Kerala and they offer schemes whereby a person can deposit small sums of money and accumulate it to a large sum to buy all the opulence. Why is there this petty need to show off to the society when money earned can be put for other satisfactions.   It’s an irony to say that the rich show off and the poor struggle to display. It’s seldom to find a woman in Kerala who is not adorned with gold (Pentecostal’s are exceptions). People not only buy gold but also hoard it as well. Does gold become a decorative symptom of a fetish of adornment for the Woman? Does it make her beautiful? Why is the psychology of desire so much attached to this metal? It’s comic to watch a Kerala bride carrying so many garlands on her neck and bearing the burden of being on many leashes.  Why does Kerala society privilege Gold as cultural festoon of veneration? I do not have any answers but I ask all these questions as discourse on Gold. Why don’t the women of the hundred percent only literate state of India take a stance that will not burden their fathers to carry the cross of buying all the gold? People of India are so vehement to ban the consumption of beef which is a religious idiosyncrasy. People of Kerala may have a pseudo belief that God’s will be pleased by this ostentatious display. There are many stories of people who have become debt ridden due to lavish purchase of Gold for their own daughters. This Gold craziness transforms the state of Kerala into a bourgeoisie fetish of an apotheosis of cultural narcissism.  Brides, Daughters and Wife’s of Kerala, elevate your bodies, display it and express it creatively as ornamentation rather trying to show Gold as the only way for beautification. You have been made more beautiful by nature that the gold you wear.

Reviews

[Abderrahmane Dakir]

I'm agree with you the gold is just object of material but the human being is the priceless in this univers. The moral of your story is amazing. Thank you for sharing.