Digging Gold in Delhi

Forget tall, dark and handsome. Even love is an optional extra. What a new breed of woman is really looking for in a man is a nice, fat bank account. Gold diggers seem to be everywhere at the moment. You’d find her perched on a bar stool in a hip nightspot, dressed in Gucci or Cavalli, dripping with designer jewels and quaffing Dom Perignon at `25,000 a bottle.

Even high school girls in Delhi have traded teenage romance with gold digging. I was shocked when I heard high school girls talk about boyfriends with black card or platinum card. Not so long ago, the girlie talk used to be about the guy’s looks and the way he kissed. Today, I won’t be shocked to hear that a girl dumped a guy because the new guy she met has a Lamborghini while the earlier ‘poor’ one drove her around in an SL 500 Merc.

Today’s liberated girls unabashedly say, “I’m not ashamed to admit that getting married to a wealthy man is my top priority.” A friend of mine points out that these days, with the divorce rate so high, considerations such as security are more important than love. Her dream, she says, is to have a five-bedroomed house in Lutyen’s Delhi. “We’d have two or three classic cars—I’d like a Mercedes Kompressor convertible. I’d like some stables with beautiful horses in probably another property—our farmhouse. I’m not into designer labels, but it would be nice to be able to buy what I wanted when I wanted. What’s wrong with wanting to meet a man who can provide me with these?” I spoke to a lot of women who were being plied with champagne every night, yet none would admit to being a gold digger.

Is it our obsession with celebrities that is to blame? Whole magazines are devoted to the antics of the Wags, and young girls are citing them as their role model. They are openly aspirational about admiring wealth and admiring women who have married into wealth. What inspired me to right this piece was a conversation with a stylish socialite. She said, “It’s not just about lifestyle—I’m ambitious and I admire men who have the drive to get on in life. I’ve met men who are in their 40s or 50s, very successful but without much spare time. They just want to spend spare time with a chic babe to pamper. One flew me in a jet to Gordon Ramsay’s restaurant in Sloane Square where we had a wonderful meal. I don’t think I’d have to be in love to marry someone, but if he was a good man with the right lifestyle and income, then I don’t think love is the most important thing.”

‘Love’, go take a hike. Greed is no longer perceived as a bad thing. It’s seen as a question of who’s using whom. Anna Nicole Smith may have got millions, but J Howard Marshall got to share his bed with a beautiful busty blonde while he was in his 80s.