My Grandfather’s Lesson

by Vikas Sehgal

Around 1982, I was not even ten years old. On a crisp winter afternoon in Delhi, my grandfather and I sat together eating peanuts and gur (jaggery). Out of nowhere, he began telling me a story.

At that age, I had no idea why he was telling it to me. It seemed like just another story from an older generation. Yet, more than four decades later, I remember every word. Only with time did I understand that it wasn’t simply a story about Partition. It was a lesson about human nature.

My family came from Sargodha, now in Pakistan. As the months leading up to Partition in 1947 unfolded, communal tensions were steadily rising. According to my grandfather, some Sikhs associated with the local gurdwaras, together with other Punjabi elders, sensed where events were heading. They went from house to house urging Hindu families to prepare. Their advice was simple: buy swords and whatever means of self-defence were available while there was still time. Many refused.

The advice sounded irrational. Why spend precious money on weapons that might never be used? Why prepare for a future that most people believed would never arrive? The cost was immediate; the danger was uncertain. Then history arrived. The riots that followed devastated Sargodha. The Hindu community was effectively annihilated through killings and forced displacement. Families who had prepared at least gave themselves a chance to defend themselves or escape. Those who dismissed the warnings had little opportunity left once the violence reached them.

My grandfather never told me that story to make me fearful. He told it to teach me something much deeper: when people begin preparing for an outcome that seems highly improbable, pay attention. Not because they are always right, but because they may be seeing a risk that everyone else has chosen to ignore.

That lesson came back to me as I watched what is happening in the gold options market. We are witnessing extraordinary demand for long-dated COMEX gold call options — not only at strike prices of $6,000 and $8,000 an ounce, but also at $10,000, $15,000 and even $20,000. To most observers, these positions appear absurd. Why would anyone knowingly pay premiums today for outcomes that seem almost impossible? Perhaps they are wrong. But perhaps they are simply buying insurance against a future that the rest of the market still considers inconceivable.

By no means am I suggesting that the lesson is to buy swords. That belonged to a particular place, a particular time, and one of the darkest chapters in our history. The point is much simpler: when thoughtful people begin paying a price today to protect against a future that everyone else dismisses, don’t laugh it off. You don’t have to agree with them. You don’t have to follow them. But you should at least ask yourself what they might be seeing that you are not.

History has taught me that preparation almost always looks irrational before the event. Once the event arrives, preparation is no longer possible. The greatest mistake is often not being wrong — it is dismissing the people who are preparing for what everyone else believes cannot happen. Sometimes the premium you pay for being early turns out to be insignificant compared with the cost of being unprepared.

“History rarely announces itself in advance. It whispers first — to those willing to pay the price of listening.”