J is for jewellery

Our pre-renovation preparation involves getting rid of all our existing furniture, so for the last few weeks, we have been donating/selling whatever we can. Yesterday, I was clearing out my dressing table, when I found myself going down memory lane. Two drawers were full of jewellery, mostly earrings. I've always been an earring-crazy person, with a strong preference for artificial ones. They are cheap, so you can buy earrings to match or contrast with every single outfit you have. And if you lose them, you don't sit and cry for half an hour. And if you get bored of them, you just toss them out.

My mom finds this behavior very disturbing. She probably thinks that my distaste for gold jewellery brings shame to my family name. I still remember how shocked she looked when I told her that I wanted to wear artificial jewellery at my wedding because I wanted it to match my sari EXACTLY, and gold wouldn't. In fact, she forced me to go to Mustafa to scout for the gold jewellery for my wedding. On hindsight, it was a very fruitful trip. I came back armed with an iPod nano. My sister laughed her guts out trying to imagine me wearing the iPod with my wedding sari. Of course, Mom found none of this funny. She put her foot down ("you have chosen the boy, we will choose the rest") and I had to wear some very ghastly jewellery and then run around with all that excess weight to the marriage registration office and what not. I still laugh uncontrollably thinking of my poor friend Starbreez, who accompanied me everywhere with all the gold perched on her head.

My mom says gold is an investment and will be passed on to Xena for her wedding. I can only think of my friend K's wise words, "Who knows if this generation will marry at all?" In any case, I can't imagine Xena to be anything different from her gold-hating momma. She does seem to have the same taste as me in general. Favourite colour: purple is just an example.

Xena has always been quite fascinated with my jewellery boxes. She likes to take each item out and tell me if it's nice or not nice, and which outfits I should wear it with. She saw me sorting yesterday, picked out some of my favourite earrings and asked, "Mama, can I share your jewellery when I'm five years old?"

"Sure, baby, but why five?"

"That's when I'll get my ears pierced."

"Ooh. Okay."

(Even though custom says that this is best done as early as possible, we did not pierce her ears when she was a baby because we did not want to mess with her already weak immune system. The doctor also asked us to keep her away from anything that could cause an infection. I figured that it would be nice to pierce her ears when she asked for it herself.)

So it looks like our little girl is almost ready to get her ears pierced.

We will try to draw the line at ears.