Day: January 11, 2019

One of the things which we have been struggling to remind ourselves, and it cannot be enough times that we understand it, that our lives, in themselves, as they are, and we, as we are, are beautiful, complete. That is what we try to communicate to anyone who comes in contact with us or our brand- that you are beautiful, complete, and much more, as you are. Our jewellery, or any jewellery cannot make you beautiful or confident or happy. Unless you see yourself as beautiful and buy from a place of joy and freedom, nothing much is going to happen. You will only fall in a loop of endless searches and swiping and be bored and move on to the next new thing. Cycle repeat. Buy it because you want to, knowing that there is an element of choice. Buy because you are aware of the abundance in your life. Because the only thing a beautiful piece of jewellery can do is to awaken you to your forgotten beauty or show to you a side of you that you had not known. The other thing it can do it is to reveal to you your taste, the things that matter to you and the innate capacity in you to appreciate beauty. Our brand, the work we do, is a way of realising this and sharing and communicating the same with our friends, audiences, buyers.

It often sounds like a contradiction- why are we selling jewellery, if we feel our lives are anyway complete and why would anyone buy the jewellery we are selling if they don’t need it? It may sound outrageous, unrealistic and crazy, especially for a brand that intents to sell itself- but the truth is this- we dont need to sell jewellery, and you do not need to buy it. As such, it is nowhere close to being an essential product. It is what it is- an accessory. Something that adds to what already exists. Something that may emphasize, underline or highlight the beauty that already is in you. It is, clearly, a mark of privilege. We have the luxury to indulge in beauty, in what can be very simply called excessiveness.

Most of us have been geared to think of excess as something negative. We have learnt to see our lives as limited, determined by needs and limitations. Raising these questions becomes difficult when one working on designing marketing strategies for a brand. There are pressures of breaking even, generating profits, doing what is “essential” to make things roll. Unless, of course, one reminds oneself, that what we are doing in the first place, is in fact, inessential. And the pressures, well those too are rather unhelpful and more imagined than real. As we unfolded this to ourselves, slowly and patiently (and in moments running out of patience even), allowing ourselves to bring our doubts to the table, we realised that this work is as unnecessary for us, as it might be for our buyers. Necessity and survival are different matters altogether, from a monetary point of view. We could do several other things and our buyers would find several other sellers. Then why this? And though there might have been a series of events that drove us to certain decisions, why do we still stick to them? All this led us to questioning how we define our needs, our wants, the very nature of our own likes, dislikes and mechanisms of existence.

As people with a reasonable education, decent jobs in the past which we quit to do something of our own, something that we would enjoy, and with the clarity with which we could see how the markets and language of selling plays upon the insecurities and ideas of incompleteness of people,  all the above questions hung heavily upon us.. Our love for silver or for jewellery was not enough of an answer . Especially with the diverse interests, skillsets and passions each of us has. It occurred to us that we had to invert the logic of our enquiry to wrap our heads around the puddle of ideas that we were caught in. We had to move away from very particular things regarding the nature of silver and jewellery and brand language and ask ourselves the simple questions- Why do we do anything? What is life? What is work?

We dwelled over the weather, the life we have, and having hit the massive dead end of unnecessity (bordering on pointlessness) of things, we had to refresh our minds and wiring all over again. It took us days, perhaps months.  What we then came to realise was no less than wondrous. It was so evident and clear that it needed such grueling questioning to be wrenched free from the conditioning of our minds. It was simple – life as we experience it, with all its ups and downs, highs and lows, madness and sanity, our capacity to create, to feel, to make these webs which we then find ourselves entangled in, the questions and the answers, the points and pointlessnesses, all of it, every single bit of it, is an instance of excess. Everything over and above the magical act of breathing, of that process of inhalation and exhalation, each of it, is excessive to life- life as a whole cosmic phenomenon- of which the entire universe, the planetary system, the beings, sentient and not, our very perception and consciousness of it- as something outside of the cycle of mere transformation of matter or energy-  is it not all an instance of excess? That passage between the moment of birth, which can well be seen as the moment of death, from the smallness of our limited body and understanding amidst the mass of humanity and surfaces of land and oceans to the infinite limitlessness of our imagination and possibilities, between the illusions and realities, everything is excessive. One can observe as a stoic, renounce or reject as ascetic or celibate, rejoice as a poet, an artist, or be a very ordinary being flowing through impenetrable ebbs and rise of everyday existence.

And that is precisely where we glue ourselves back into our act. It is the idea of rasa, of being an aesthete, of doing things with the awareness of their excessive nature, as something which is more about the passing of time (life), making a journey, from a place of peace, joy and freedom in whatever we do. It is about being able to acknowledge and underline the excessive and enormous nature of our lives. It is a feeling of wonder, where one can think of sringara, of adornment, of appreciation, of giving. We have been able to understand our fascination and decision to work with silver jewellery much better after all this thinking. Perhaps this is a the case with a lot of decisions- one works ones way backward- finding logic to support a choice/decisions made intuitively or for which we  have forgotten the reasons, absorbed in the act of doing, till a new road block or conflict between thought and feeling emerges[ read more].

We always knew this but it was never articulated for us- We are not writing, working, creating because we want to sell. It’s the other way round. We want to write, create and share what we think is beautiful and hence we sell it, so that we can continue with it, given the functional necessities of the system we have found ourselves, at this particular juncture of time and space.

Likewise, we do not want you to buy what we sell because you need it, or have a certain lack which will be filled by a mere piece of metal. We would like you to buy it because you know that you are beautiful and beyond need, and you might want to indulge in and appreciate it further, as yet another mark of acknowledging the excessiveness that you life is.

As college students we always had friends who either couldn’t afford gold or did not like it. And since fashion jewellery was everywhere, in the most attractive designs and mostly affordable prices, it was an obvious choice. However, a lot of it caused severe allergic reactions, mostly due to high proportions of nickel used in it. And we hankered for alternatives.

 

Back home, silver was only stuff for anklets and chains and some rings prescribed by astrologers. Or gifts for new babies or weddings or Diwali. Else, it was something worn by nomads and tribals, and that is not we should aspire to!

 

Interestingly, being in metropolitans and having some artsy and independent women with very specific tastes around us, we encountered silver jewellery. And for these women, silver being less expensive than gold did not make it less classy. It being a tribal style made it only more desirable, if anything. It would take us a long time from there to now and understanding the complex politics of taste. But we began to admire and love silver, for its affordability, durability, skin friendliness and its tribal wildness.

 

When some of us, who had been caught by the wind of big cities wore silver back home, in our two tier- three tier cities, our parents either laughes at us, calling us names like – dheemri, banajaran  meaning nomadic, but implying much more- a lower class- poverty ridden or street dweller status, or they would tell us to wear gold and not flush their reputation down the drain.

 

As it happens, for some us, reputations are not built on the metal one wears. And being nomadic or not being rich are not really bad things; quite the contrary. The fascination with silver comes with a fascination with the moon- with the lesser light, which doesn’t lit up the world. It has its

blemishes and many shapes and forms. It doesn’t comply with human ideas of beauty and perfection, and those of us who love the moon, are those who have learnt to redefine the very meaning and perception of beauty, completeness, perfection.

 

The idea of lack has been drilled into our heads. We are imperfect. Our lives are imperfect. Our bodies, our loves, everything is imperfect. And we keep need to improving, knowing fully well that nothing and no one can be perfect. How do we do that? We keep studying, and have higher pays and greater profits. And keep working our minds and bodies off. Why? So that we can buy and upgrade to newer things. We need things to make us better, to realize our true selves.  Such a wonderful formula to achieve a goal which we have been told from start is unachievable. How do we not question- is it not us who give meaning to things? Is it not us who colour things through our perspective and make all these stories? Is it not us who actually determine how perfect or imperfect we are? We conduct our own trials in our own courts by our own rules.

 

It is strange and interesting. Because the whole idea of selling, the whole market has hinged itself on the idea of need. On the principle of lack. On the logic of having to feel lack and that things are necessary. It is the driving force of consumer culture. 

 

We are fascinated with silver because it reminds us of nomadic people and of the love of beauty in imperfections. It signifies adornment which is about expressing oneself rather than jewellery being a mask for investment or statement of patriarchal wealth. We are fascinated with silver because it heals. It is white, like the moon. And it turns black, like the night.  We love silver for the same reason that it is loved loved by the nomadic and the tribals- it bears witness to constant transformation that occurs through interactions with the outside, with air, with nature.

We were quite certain that our packaging would be as beautiful as the product, but we wanted to work on finer aspects. We know that every time we buy something from an outlet or online, we come back with bags and packets that either need to thrown away instantly or have limited life. We wanted to not create the same problem for our buyers.  Our packing had to be:

• reuseable
• multipurpose
• long lasting

Also, we felt that our packaging can be a very good way of sharing the handicrafts of Agra, or the rest of the state, Uttar Pradesh with a larger audience. The handicrafts of U.P. are world famous and loved all over the country as well. However, the artisans are mostly disenchanted given the low wages, decreasing interest in the locals. What they don’t talk about mostly is the need for recognition and advancement when they are struggling to just about make ends meet.

We decided to start exploring from our own city, famous for its inlay work and zardozi world wide. But the present generations in the city, especially those with buying capacity are either unaware or disinterest in the crafts. One of the reasons is perhaps having seen that work around for too long and hence taking it for granted. Further, the accessibility to other forms and works and coming in of brands does create a very complex situation. While the crafts happen at mass scale, the locals have little to do with, unless directly involved in the trade or in export.

It seemed like the perfect thing to bring these crafts into our packaging. We started with stone boxes in inlay and hard board boxes covered in fabric with Zardozi or Reshamdozi (embroidery with fine wire or thread).We played turned things around a little by using velvet with thread and raw silk for wire embroidery as opposed to the traditional work of wire on velvet. Details about the inlay work as well as Zardozi as a form merit another long post, which we will share soon.

  

We tried working with soft stone boxes with inlay work and while they caught the eye and fancies of many we were encountering two issues: it is heavy, and easily breakable. After a year, we decided to move on to something different. And we came up with the idea of working with wooden boxes. We source the wooden box from local vendors in Saharanpur. The box made in Mango wood is eco-friendly, reusable and sturdy. We have been experimenting with pastel colours and silver foil scratch work for these boxes and thus far they have been loved with everyone who has seen them.

We do not charge extra for the packaging, but we do have different packaging for orders worth different amount, so as to be able to keep it sustainable for ourselves. The packaging is a gift for our customer that would perhaps encourage them to work towards recycling, reuse and renew an interest in the local handicrafts. We also hope that some others in the industry will join hands with us and switch to long lasting packaging made by local artisans, thus working both towards the growing of the craft and lesser damage to the environment.

We have a few other interesting elements to our packaging.

1. We have pouches made from old saarees. Initially we started using the bulk of unused old saaress of our mothers and grandmothers which were very close to our hearts and difficult to simply throw away. This kind of upcycling and reuse thrilled us. Later, some of our friends and relatives too have been giving away saarees to us so that we can make these pouches. We go to a local woman for getting these pouches stitched and she really enjoys it since she cannot step out to work with a little kid to take care of. Each time a pouch as this reaches you, you have something of a dear one from one of our families.

2. We use seed paper wherever we must use paper. Brochures, visiting cards, wedding cards, all these things lay haunting, adding to the bulk of waste in our lives. A lot of us struggle to figure out a good way to dispose them. We have been resisting the temptation to make a visiting card. And most of our material is online or we share it on phone. But in case we must use paper, we try and stick to seed paper. Seed paper is recycled paper made with seeds inside it. So if you throw the paper in soil and water it, a plant with grow.

3. We realized we need to buy some plastic covers for the purpose of couriering. So we have chosen recycle grade plastic. Also, the plastic cover can actually be used to out a plant in- so you have the seed paper and the plastic bag to put it in.