GOLD GLOW: FROM SHIELD TO THRILL

GOLD selling at %1,10,000 per 10 grams in all cities—the shimmer of that headline number is not just a market statistic.

- PRABHU CHAWLA

For millions of aspirational middle-class and lower-middle-class households across India, it is a blow that lands in the very places where promises and securities are stored: weddings, festivals, the small iron safe in the corner of a bedroom, or the handful of coins kept aside for an emergency. Gold—once a ritual, a relish, an intergenerational contract of security and social belonging—has been recast as a commodity for markets, a tradeable instrument whose rise has both enriched some and eviscerated others’ dreams.

This is not merely finance-speak. Consider the lived arithmetic: where a bridal family of 2015 could plan modestly with prices around 225,000-30,000 per 10 grams, they now confront a figure approaching four times that level. The immediate human consequence is unambiguous. The households that planned for marriages, festivals, and rites through the slow, culturally sanctioned accretion of gold have seen that plan has become unaffordable. The social ritual of gifting gold, considered a marker of status and security, is fraying at the edges.

At the same time, on the stock exchange and in the vaults of global custodian banks, gold has become an active financial asset. Exchange-traded funds and sovereign instruments now convert the once-intimate act of buying a gold bangle into a tradeable, liquid position. In India, the assets under management of gold ETFs have surged dramatically over the last couple of years to a whopping %60,000-65,000 crore, roughly 40-50 tonnes of gold equivalent. Meanwhile, sovereign gold bonds and digital ‘paper gold’ platforms have widened the investor base. What once used to be a market of artisans, jewellers and families is increasingly populated by institutional players and retail savers seeking market returns or portfolio diversification.