Jewellery memories as a child? What my beautiful mother possessed-- which was not very much! I now own and wear her simple mangalsutra, and the four gold bangles I was given when I turned 18. My father was a bureaucrat and retired as Additional Law Secretary, Government of India. [...]
Jewellery!!! It’s never enough . I have never heard anyone saying in my family we have enough. They literally find excuses to buy more. Because it’s easily transferred from one generation to other and it is the most transformative thing we can wear. [...]
My father was a diplomat so I didn’t grow up in India. Because we were overseas a lot, the culture of dressing up and being so adorned wasn't as grand as it is at home. The way we bedeck ourselves with jewellery is at a different level from the rest of the world. [...]
What are your memories of jewellery growing up? My childhood memories are like a bouquet of sensory perceptions and jewellery features quite prominently in them. I recall the sound of my mother’s gold and glass bangles clinking delicately, the gentle rustle of her silk ‘pallu’, as she opened the iron almirah that [...]
...my father came to see my mother in the hospital delivery room. She handed him the baby and he pressed a gold bangle into her palm. “Ponn kodutha kai-kku pon kodukkaren,” he said with a shy grin. Ponn in Tamil means daughter. Pon, without the end emphasis, also means gold. My father, ever [...]
Jewellery was always part of giving a reward in our family. We would procure and wear a piece of jewellery, whether new or handed-down on important occasions. If I did well at school, or for birthdays or arangetrams, jewellery played an important role. I can remember that I got a pair of jhumkis [...]
As a child, I was always interested in getting dressed up. The women in my family were very simple. My grandmother had earrings, gold bangles, mangalsutra. My mother, a few pieces more than that. The first time we indulged in jewellery shopping properly was when my brother got married. [...]