Growing your Ears to Dangle a Snake

When a young girl came of age, the story goes, the jeweller would visit her home to pierce her ears. He would then insert soft hay into it to make sure that the hole didn't close. A few days later he would visit to "tear" the hole just a bit more.  Insert more [...]

Snakes and the Human Imagination

Serpent motifs permeate jewellery.  But the human obsession with serpents goes way back In Egypt, snakes symbolized royalty.  As far back as 2500 B.C., the burial mounds in Egypt had solid gold bracelets made using the snake motif.  When the Buddha was in a state of blissful enlightenment, the [...]

Jewels and their Link to Tamil Literature

There are people in interior Tamilnadu who sing in sweet Tamil Of Sanga-thamizh literature, the Tolkaapiyam, Kurunthogai and Thirukkural. They quote the five great epics.  And in these lie the jewellery. Jivaka Cintamani (Fabulous Gem that gave jiva or life) Kundalakesi (Kundala refers to earrings) Valayapathi [...]

The Wondrous Kempu Jewellery

Literally-- red The Tamil aesthetic is tuned to muted colours and high-quality material. People love kempu because of high-quality rubies without additional embellishments. "No jigina," or sparkly stuff, as traditionalists would say. Kempu jewellery fits this profile to a T. Typically [...]

By |2019-09-30T22:30:36+05:30July 9th, 2019|Categories: Making, Tamilnadu|Tags: , , , , , , |15 Comments

Shobhaa De

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. [...]

Padmini Kumari

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. [...]

Gayatri Rangachari Shah

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.  [...]

Madhu Natraj

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 [...]

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