The Silver Jewelry Jackpot

The Silver Jewelry Jackpot

By James Allen .com


Traditional silver jewelery is Swapnasundari’s passion, after her dance of course.

“I’m a great shopper,” says Swapnasundari. Before you can conjure up an image of the eminent classical dancer peppering her performance tours with shopping sprees at the world’s exclusive boutiques, she explains her speciality.

“I have a huge collection of silver jewelry from all sorts of places.”

But this is no drawing room collection ordered from the Capital’s upmarket localities. “I don’t go to the Sunder Nagar shops,” she puts in. It turns out that, just as Swapnasundari’s vast knowledge of the arts focuses on dance forms of the Tamil Nadu-Andhra Pradesh region, so too her love of beautiful objects is concentrated on the vast range of traditionally crafted silver jewellery. From all corners.

In a performing career that requires her to travel regularly, the performer and guru says she has picked up silver jewelry, especially traditional tribal pieces, from all corners of India for years; sometimes at a tribal fair, sometimes a nondescript shop in a local bazaar. Sometimes, like in Hampi, where Lambada women sell the ornaments before the Virupaksha temple, she finds them right on the street.

“I am hard put to stop collecting silver jewelry,” she admits. She tries to buy only those pieces she is likely to wear. “But sometimes I buy one even if I know I can’t wear it, because I know the silversmith will melt it down, and it will be lost forever.”

Most tribal people these days, says the multi-faceted dancer, vocalist and scholar, don’t keep their traditional jewellery intact because they either want to exchange it for something “Bambaiyya”, or because they need the money. “And silversmiths are not interested in the craft as such, only in the value of the silver. So they melt it down and recycle it into fashionable designs.”

It is not easy to convince a silversmith to show you a traditional old piece of silver jewelery. Fearful of showing antique pieces in case they get in trouble, they try to dissuade the customer. “When you go into these shops in a salwar-kameez with your hair in a rubber band, you don’t look like a dehati who’s really going to wear all that,” she comments.

Once the misgivings are allayed, a few pieces appear. Most of the time, she gets them for the price of the silver. “I am not paying for the neon lights and fancy overheads,” she remarks.
Neon lights or no, unique objects appear for her.

“In Landour near Mussoorie, I went into a small silver jewelry shop and got a beautifully engraved piece with a yak’s tail hair, which is used for good luck. It came from Tibet. I had a student with me, and when I came out she said ‘I was in the same shop… I never saw that!’”

Her favourites, says the dancer, are silver ear ornaments; she has at least 50 pairs of traditional silver ear ornaments. Then there are pendants, which she sets in necklaces of semi-precious stones that she designs herself, the finger rings, the hair ornaments, including parandhis (kunjalams), and the sari pins. So much for favourites. She also has a few maatha pattis (head ornaments). Not to mention the silver bangles.

“But I prefer kadaas, because there are so many types,” she points out.

“But I absolutely could not resist buying one set of payal in Bhopal. It grips the ankle bone and then trails onto your foot. I actually got a ghagra tailored to the right length, so that when it moves, I can look at it, more than anyone else!” she laughs.

She uses some of her collection as stage silver jewelery too, if it blends with the designs. “Because if you look at our sculptures,” comments, “you see the dance jewellery is not like the temple jewellery we wear now.” Some she gets polished with gold to match the gold-bordered costumes. For those she retains in silver, she designs a suitable costume.

In the end, Swapnasundari prefers silver to gold.

“A very ornate design looks classy and understated in silver, whereas it might look a bit too much in gold.” And imagine, she adds, silver was always considered the poor man’s metal. Not anymore though. Silver has hit gold!

The Hindu Times contributed to this article.