Jewelry is my armor.
Whenever I have a challenging day ahead of me, I like putting on trinkets from around the world.

An evil eye bracelet slips around my wrist, cool against my skin.

An airport in Istanbul at midnight. The sound of scraping suitcases and shoes along terrazzo, and the sweet smell of baklava and dates. Me, languidly walking towards the sign board, when my eyes catch on a small corner shop filled with trinkets.

A pair of silver earrings from Singapore. A gifted bracelet from Phuket. A ring from Jaipur.

The cacophonous chorus of traffic ricochets off terracotta shopfronts in a Jaipur street. While other street sellers tunefully call out an invitation, one small shop sits tacitly at the corner, its wares and gems speaking for themselves.

Each one carries more than metal and stone. They hold the memory of an almost-missed flight, of a gift exchanged in a sea of school students, or the hands that fastened a bracelet around my wrist.

I’m not particularly religious, but I feel safer with a Neelam stone around my neck and an evil eye on my wrist – purely because of the love stitched into the material.

Some pieces are tarnished, kissed black with time, but the little imperfections are evidence of how deeply they’ve been loved.
Because, like armor, not all jewellery is meant to stay lustrous – the nicks and scratches only narrate the times when it protected me.

Yours truly,
Divi