Happy Diwali!

At the top of Yahoo! right now is a prominent link to this festive page about the Indian holiday Diwali, also known as the "Festival of Lights".
There's lots more about Diwali at Wikipedia and at Diwali, from which comes:

The first day of five day long Diwali celebrations is of great importance to the rich community of western India. Houses and business premises are renovated and decorated. Entrances are made colorful with lovely traditional motifs of Rangoli designs to welcome Lakshmi, the Goddess of wealth and prosperity. To indicate her long-awaited arrival, small footprints are drawn with rice flour and vermilion powder all over the houses. Lamps are kept burning all through the night. Believing this day to be auspicious, women purchase some gold or silver or at least one or two new utensils.

With only a few exceptions, gold buying in India is reportedly brisk at the moment.
Dubai too it seems, based on that last news item - here's a link. They're running out of gold bars - that seems to be a problem everywhere these days.