A woman’s Wealth

My necklaces, were to remind me that my head should stay humbly bowed; and lastly my bangles, rich and gold on my wrists, should always be stretched forward in acts of charity. I loved my mother’s favourite saying and tried to take it to heart: ‘‘Feet are made pure by pilgrimage, the hands by charity and the lips by calling on God’’.

She used to be after the woman who massaged us children to concentrate on the girls’ little hands, knead them so that they would be supple enough to accept the most slender of bangles. I remember the bangriwallis, the bangle-sellers who came to fill our wrists with the delicate glass bangles. They would squeeze the knuckles of the hands in such a manner as to put the smallest possible size of bangles onto our wrists. We Indian women admire very slender hands. We love wrists covered in bangles, but they must hug the hands so snugly as never to clang. Bangles must only jingle discreetly whenever a woman moves her hand. I never dared explain that to Miss Blake, my governess and my instructress in so-called civilised ways. Poor thing, her hands and wrists were so big, we never could find any bangles to fit her unless they were made specially, and even then, to fit over her hands, they had to be so wide that once on the wrists, they clanged about most indiscreetly.

BY the time I came to Madanpur, it was considered impractical to wear mountains of jewellery during the day, like some of those ancient sculptures. It was also faintly suggestive of the women who danced at our durbars—not really courtesans, but not women of virtue.

That did not mean we looked down on jewellery—far from it. On festival days we were issued as much jewellery as we desired. Miss Blake was absolutely astonished the first time she went with me to visit the toshakhana. The toshakhana was the treasury where all state property like jewellery was kept. Everything was listed in yard-long notebooks, each issue recorded meticulously. Usually it was the senior Maharani who dictated who was to wear which set of jewellery for important occasions when we all dressed up.

In the company of a very old aunt, Miss Blake, the old aunt and I were once shown box after box of pearls the size of marbles, rubies like pigeon’s blood, emeralds and diamonds the size of a thumb-nail, sapphires blue like the sea. The Keeper opened these boxes one after the other. Then he opened a big velvet lined case, which I had not seen before.

That ancient auntie smiled a very tiny smile and raised up its lid. With old hands and a little girl’s smile, she lifted its contents and put them on me; a full garment of gold chains: yards and yards of them intricately linked. I was literally covered in gold: my arms, my chest, right down to my thighs. ‘‘This belonged’’, said auntie, ‘‘to a beautiful woman much beloved of His Highness’ grandfather, though her calling was the oldest in the world’’.

‘‘Auntie, this is lovely!’’ I said. I really meant that; it was like wearing a web of spun gold. ‘‘But dear aunt, it’s rather inconvenient, if you know what I mean. It must take hours to extricate oneself; you couldn’t be in a hurry!’’

Without a word, my aunt covered her head with her sari, stood very straight and touched a tiny clasp near my throat. The entire piece dropped away from my shoulders and slipped to the ground, shimmering.