Earrings

A peacock built almost entirely out of open wirework — a crested head, a beaded outline, and a body and tail worked as a diamond lattice...

An oval blue nazar, set in an oxidised bezel edged with twisted rope wire. Everyone's aunt has been telling them to wear one for years. This...

A paan leaf with two peacocks facing each other inside it, and a row of drops along the bottom edge — white pearls alternating with small...

Petals layered over petals, each one edged in tiny beads, a raised centre holding it together. Big for a stud — it covers the lobe properly...

A small perched bird, wing engraved in fine hatched lines, tail fanned out behind it. Chanchal means restless. Fitting, for something built to look like it's...

Two goddess faces, eyes closed, a single bell hanging from each chin. The detail is the point — the crown, the tilt of the head, the...

Ring inside ring inside ring, with a raised square and a single ball sitting at the centre of it. Studs are usually the boring option. These...

An open lotus, petals fanned wide, ghungroo strung underneath. Kamal is the most-used motif in Indian jewellery, which means most versions of it are boring. This...

The peacock everyone does. The tail nobody does — coiled into a spiral instead of fanned out. Same bird, better idea. It reads as a paisley...

A stag with full antlers, its body and legs speckled all over with tiny dark crystals. Nobody else is wearing deer. That's most of the point....

A long-tailed bird per ear, with a cluster of ghungroo hanging where the tail sweeps down. Chidiya. Small, common, completely unbothered — the bird nobody photographs...

A crescent, a peacock's head at one end, a fan of petals at the other. Bells at the bottom, because of course. Chandrika means moonlit. It's...

A smooth dome, a ring of beadwork around it, three tiny ghungroo swinging underneath. That's it. No story, no occasion, no reason needed. The kind of...

मुसाफ़िर. Traveller. Wear the word, skip the sermon. A spoked wheel up top, the word hanging off a bar below, cut clean in oxidised brass so...