Go(l)d's Own Country - Kerala

Whoever coined the tag line "God's Own Country" for Kerala, I don't understand what they actually meant. Today people call it "Gold's Own Country". May be that's a bit more apt. This can be better understood when one watches the Malayalam television channels or goes through the newspapers. The advertisement media in Kerala earns a good share of its income from the 'gold players' in the state.

Once I received a mail with the subject : Gold Mine. I thought it was in fact the details of some gold mine located somewhere, but it was the picture of a Mallu bride. I don't think I need to explain anything more - the title does. Nowadays giving so much gold in wedding has turned out more as a fashion and symbol of social and wealth status than need. In olden days also, girls were given gold but not as much as it is now. No wonder there are dowry deaths in the country. People have started expecting a lot.

The generation today, we don't see girls wearing so much ornaments in their daily life. But things turn the way round on the marriages. The parents or rather nobody ever thinks that all these ornaments are going a waste. Ornaments are meant to be worn and do they expect the girls to wear all those heavy ones to office and in daily life. For an occassion its okay, but how often do that big occassions come.

Few years back, I didn't like wearing gold ornaments. Neither did my cousin, Raji. Whenever a marriage came up, in the morning there would be a big fight in the house. We would be told to wear necklaces (I hated this the most in those days), bangles, new earrings, and rings. How we hated those things. But however hard we tried or cried, our moms would be the people on the winning side.

So somehow the tag line is appropriate... ;-)

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