Not even a silver lining for Akshaya Tritiya!

Last year when she could not buy gold, Seema had pacified herself that she would be able to afford it next year. “With that promise to self, I bought gold plated silver ‘aarti tatte’ and had started saving up to be able to afford a small piece of jewellery this time around,” says the mother of two girls.

Even as she saw the yellow metal zoom past the ‘affordability’ line, she quite resolved to buying gold-plated-something again.

But, with silver expected to cross the ` 75,000 per kilo mark in the next few days, she is wondering if she should simply go and buy one gm gold jewellery.

“I never saw rates of silver increase like this in my entire lifetime” says the 40-year-old. “We often gift silver articles on auspicious occasions. Akshaya Tritiya may well mean prosperity if I am able to afford a decent silver cup which costs nearly             ` 4,000!” she says.

With traders and businessmen buying both metals in bulk, more so the silver with its rates sky-rocketing like never before, general public are left with no choice but to be the victims caught between artificial scarcity and tailored increase in the prices. The 55-year-old Ashwini Khandekar, who recently shifted to Mysore from Bangalore confesses Akshaya Tritiya was big only in North India till late.

“It is only since a decade or so that we all have fallen for this concept en masse and have turned ourselves into the hands of market forces,” she observes.

Though she understands the significance and ‘auspicious’ness of the day, she fails to understand why prosperity is linked to only one day in the whole year! However, it is going to be a tough choice for those who can neither afford gold nor silver, and will still want to ‘buy’ luck on this day.

“I am wondering if I should buy household articles and spruce up the house than buy gold or silver and put it under lock and key in the bank. In any case, booking a car or taking the delivery on the very day is not too bad an idea,” says Madhu Hariprasad.
Akshaya Tritiya, in one way or the other, seems to be adding into ever growing consumerism.