Pearls got strung into my destiny when I was born on June 20th. But I did not always love pearls. Saddled with what I had felt then was the unassuming pearl as my birthstone, on many special occasions, I would get some pearl related gift or the other- a tiny pearl on a ring, a shy sphere of nacre on a pendant, a bracelet of small, crowded seed pearls. And always, the pearls were white! How I would envy my sisters who had made claim to some gorgeous gemstone by choosing the right months to be born- stunning sapphires, glowing topazes and sparkling diamonds!
But pearls held a special place in my family because Abboo (my father) had visited Japan in the late 1960s and while there, had been charmed by the lustrously beautiful Akoya Pearl. He bought four beautiful 5mm, classic white pearls and lots of reading material about the akoya pearls and pearl farming in Japan. Ammi (my mother) had the pearls set into earrings, pendant and a ring and left the other pearl related paraphernalia for whoever was interested in this arcane topic (this was Karachi of the early 1970s where 22 k gold jewellery was the gold standard!). Ammi always said that the pearls would go to me because they were special- they were one of the first pieces of jewellery Abboo had ever bought for Ammi! But even this sentimental backstory did not make the pearls any more valuable to me then (however, now I love them and cherish them, not only for what they represent in my family but for what they are).
My continual disdain for pearls continued well into my late twenties when one day I met a glorious, peacock, cultured Tahitian pearl and my world completely flipped! It was a round pearl, mounted on a white gold ring. The setting was very simple because the real star of the show was the pearl, all glorious, lustrous 12mm of it. And then I had a feeling, almost like a voice inside me asking that ‘If this is a genuine pearl, there must be others like it, or perhaps different from it, but most probably equally stunning.’ And thus began the story of my love for pearls.
