Last month there was an incident where a woman was killed for her gold ornaments. That is not anything to mention, is it? Such incidents happen often especially in Kerala. What is so special about this one? Listen to this: The culprit was caught immediately and the ‘gold’ ornaments he took a life for turned out to be mere ‘rolled’ gold! A life for some scrap metal worth nothing! The price the woman had to pay for some shiny stuff to decorate her body!

This news shocked Vishnu whose mother always wear tiny gold ornaments. And it prompted him to write a letter to his parents attaching the news cutting and imploring his mother to stop using gold if she could. His mother responded immediately by removing all gold ornaments. His parents wrote to assure him and his sister that they will not give more value to gold than their life or safety.

Vishnu’s letter to his parents

Vishnu and Indulekha reading their parents’ letter