At 40, I developed a personality trait: Gold jewellery. Let me be a golden girl, sir

Turns out midlife reinvention requires all that glitters. With the PM's exhortation for austerity, what happens to every Indian woman's emotional support?

I had never been much of a jewellery girl, neither while growing up nor as an adult, no thanks to those strict school-uniform checks that took away any desire for accessories from me way back in the ’90s. While I appreciate the sentiment – the school was trying to minimise feelings of conflict between those whose parents could afford to make them look rich and those who couldn’t – that extreme advocacy for a certain bland look also meant I had got so used to that life, even a minor variation from that bareness left me feeling physically uncomfortable.

But then I recently turned 40, and all of a sudden I found myself looking for ways to accessorise that didn’t seem too far from who I was. It might have to do with the fact that I’d been struggling to express my femininity, what with a changing body (I know it sounds like I am talking about adolescence, but look up matrescence), that made it difficult to accept what was in the mirror.

So I did what I do whenever I need life advice. If you thought I was going to do something remotely responsible like my husband had been suggesting — asking a life coach for advice because I was also experiencing burnout, for instance – you’re going to have to live with disappointment. I opened Pinterest and went ahead and created a secret mood board of the things I’d like to do to feel good.

I looked through archives of photos of Indian women through the years to see just what women, ordinary and royal, were doing much before salons and beauty parlours existed to express femininity. Of course, it turned out to be jewellery.

I already had a nose piercing, so adding another nose ring to that formidable collection would obviously be my first priority, because who cares about logic? Then I remembered with great fondness the only other piece of jewellery I’d never taken off. A tiny emerald set in a ring that my mother gave me as I finished school, to wear on my little finger to help me with my career. I’d like to think it’s what set me off on the career path I did. So now my mood board had nose-pin photographs, and emerald rings.

Then I searched for quiet luxury earrings photos, because all the vintage Indian women were wearing not-so-quiet gold and precious stone earrings, and because I was still thinking of becoming “quietly” feminine. I added solitaire earrings in various shapes to my board. And then came upon the plan of three more piercings in my ears. For these, I looked at slightly more India-inspired gold earrings.

Everything was ready. I even mustered the courage to tell my mother I was going to take out every single piece of jewellery I owned from the locker, everything she had got for me as I was growing up, without ever wearing (But if anyone else were to comment on it, she and I would have both gone to war to protect it. After all, it was not just the fruit of my parents’ labour, it also carried immense sentimental value) and start using them.

I was also going to obviously have to buy more gold to follow through with my needs. The first investment I was ever going to make on my self-image in years.

Who would have thought the Prime Minister of India would play the villain in this hero’s journey (and not my mother, who quickly agreed to the plan)? Boo I say, could that dreadful announcement to not buy gold not wait a month more?

Ge is the author, most recently of, Burns Boy (Context Books)