One thing positive has emerged from gold’s fall from grace. My wife has now begun to trust me. Wondering?

It is something that happens in every home. Try to drive sense in your better-half, it can be only in vain. A couple of years ago, when gold began to really boom my wife was very concerned. No, we aren’t blessed with any daughter. Her concern was that her collections could get affected.

At that time, I told her: “Look, gold doesn’t deserve to be at such a high. Believe me. It is all manufactured.”

“You don’t know anything about the world. If it doesn’t deserve to be so high, why then are people queuing to buy gold?” she shot back.

I could have give her the right answer but keeping domestic peace in mind, I went by the adage that discretion is better than valour.

What I wanted to tell her at that moment was that our people have a herd mentality. When prices of a commodity such as gold rise, they all run, run and run to buy it. When land prices rise, they sprint, sprint and sprint to buy it.

Not to forget another mentality of putting their children in engineering colleges making engineering course a thriving industry. It is another matter that some colleges are looking to wriggle off now.

Getting back to gold, it was clear that there was a lobby out to push it up and up. We had many, including yours faithfully before waking up to the reality, talking of the precious metal touching $2,000 an ounce. But what no one was willing to think was that can anything just go on rising? Twelve years of bull run is itself is a prolonged run.

I think there were clear signals when people tried to force gold down your throat finding new occasions such as Akshaya Triti. From when did we realise that there is this Akshaya Triti? I don’t remember my grandmother or grandfather telling me about this!

Funds such as Goldman Sachs had a role in pushing up gold to get better returns for their investors.

The bubble finally had to burst. It has but is beginning to hurt. That, however, hasn’t changed the herd mentality of Indians. “Gold prices are down. Let’s buy, buy, buy,” is the chorus now.

Technical analysts say there is more fall to come. Now, why are people buying gold? Some say security, some say for their dear ones.

What if a burglar raids your house and walks off with all the gold you had accumulated till now? Hmm, let’s take insurance cover.

But if you are to buy for a dear one, then your love and affection and not the money that matters.

Why worry if gold is ruling at Rs 3,000 a gm or Rs 2,000 a gm if your real intention is to express your feelings to your loved ones? That’s what I do when it comes to buying for my near and dear ones.

But if we were to be smart, we should make our loved ones to spend for us!

Back to my wife’s trust in me. These days, she never hesitates to ask me: “So, will gold go up or down today?”

I know she has some plans up her sleeve. Therefore, I always add a caveat: “… It is likely to fall some more!”

All said and done, we aren’t going to wish away our herd mentality!