How can you not like gold jewellery? My mother has given up asking me this question. I can never understand the fascination that Indian women have for gold, not just now, but centuries. The shine on gold just doesn’t seem to dim from one generation to the other.

My grandmother bought gold jewellery for my mother, my mother bought gold for me, saying that it was for my wedding. Then when the wedding time arrived, I found the jewellery old fashioned and not matching my tastes, so obviously we got it customised as per my needs. And we had to put in some more money to compensate for the loss that we incurred at the time of remaking jewellery, since the jeweller considers wastage and making charges. Such a waste, I thought. After that the jewellery promptly went into the bank locker and it comes out occasionally during family weddings and functions. That too to avoid my mother’s disapproving look!

Now my friends, cousins, sisters-in-laws all do the same, collect gold for their daughters, knowing fully well that they may have to go thru the same routine.

Of course, undeniably gold jewellery brings in a strong emotional connect between mothers and daughters who lovingly keep collecting gold for their daughter’s marriage. The daughter too cherishes the jewellery given to her as it reminds her of her mother even after she’s long gone. So am sure the tradition of buying gold for daughters will continue.

So for all you mothers who are collecting gold for their daughters, just so you know, apart from jewellery, there are now more ways of collecting gold. You may want to consider these as well;

  • Gold Bars and coins,
  • Gold Exchange Traded Funds – Gold ETF’s are just like stocks, you can invest in these if you have a demat account. It’s an online version of physical gold.
  • Gold Saving Funds. These are mutual funds that invests in Gold. The good part of these funds is that you can systematically invest in gold per month through SIP route and you don’t need to have a demat account.
  • E-Gold – It is held electronically in the demat form and can be freely converted into physical In India, e-gold is offered by the National Spot Exchange Limited (NSEL), which gives investors the option to invest in commodities such as gold, silver and platinum online.

All these forms of gold can be encashed as and when you need it and made into jewellery as per your daughter’s choice.

Meanwhile there are mothers who are collecting other precious metals and I like that the most!

It’s the gold/silver/bronze that mothers are collecting, i.e. medals and trophies of their daughter’s achievements in sports and other fields! The pride with which all these medals and trophies are displayed in their living rooms(and not bank lockers), the love with which they are taken care of shows their faith in their child’s capabilities and their commitment to help her achieve it.

I hope the shine on this collection doesn’t ever dim, in fact gets brighter. May this breed grow leaps and bounds!