"Something more casual and trendy!" Mahesh repeated his wife´s word as the shopkeeper craned his neck to find some turquoise necklaces. Mishra, a middle ranking staffer at Nepal Telecom, is not always open to fashion trends. However, thanks to the relative cheapness and wide range of choice, he is positive about alternative jewelry.
"I want to gift it to my wife," he said holding a necklace of green beads. "Unlike gold, it is cheap and trendy. Besides, with it you don´t need to worry much about theft and robbery anyway." When asked if he was gifting her for some special occasion, he added with a faint blush, “Well, no. With gold I’d have needed special occasions. These necklaces are so cheap and she’s so much in love with them, I don’t really need any ‘serious’ reasons to gift them.”
As global economy plummets and value of gold ever rising, Nepali’s love for gold is on a serious decline. Gold as an accessory is not “in” anymore. From housewives to schoolgirls, everyone is shifting to alternative jewelries like turquoise, bones and plastic let alone platinum and silver.
“Once in a while, during marriages or similar social occasions, I wear gold but that’s it,” Sajini Nagarkote, 33, a housewife revealed. “Not that I don’t like it, but thanks to unsafe environment, I’d rather prefer faux jewelries.”
Jewelries, gold in particular, are seen as highly risky commodities. According to Superintendent of Police Nawa Raj Silwal, chief of Metropolitan Police Range Office Kathmandu, among the most reported theft cases, gold theft occupies a major chuck. Owing to this fact, Kathmandu Metropolitan Police has even planned to install Close Circuit Television (CCTV) in every jewelries store of Kathmandu recently.
Although many blame insecure environment for choosing alternative jewelry, Sarita KC, 26, begs to differ.
“For long, gold is seen as a yardstick to measure one’s social status in Nepal. This is simply stupid. I’ve seen marriages, which simply failed because the bride didn’t bring enough gold in dowry. More than ornament, I see gold as a social frivolity.”
Along with working women and housewives, this trend is also gaining currency among teenagers.
Shristi Siddhi Bajracharya, 17, sporting purple gem earrings, explained her reasons for alternative jewelry, “Gold is too starkly yellow. It feels a bit awkward to wear them with jeans. It just looks too classy.”
Sharing the similar sentiments, her class mate Kriti Manandhar added, “Since, colorful and floral patterns are recent fad, I prefer alternative jewelries because I can experiment better with them.”
According to Toya Neupane of Tibetan Gift Shop, since not many Nepali are positive about the bone accessories, they mostly prefer beads and plastic jewels, which are mostly imported from China. Bones and turquoise are imported from Laxminagar of Delhi while prayer beads are found in Timal village of Kavre only. Rudrakshya (Elaeocarpus ganitius), which makes a famous bead among Nepali and foreigners alike is imported mostly from Malaysia and parts of Nepal itself.
Along with these, gems, as Sattar Abdul of Marcopolo Gems, Thamel, told are also catching up with Nepali trend.
Although more and more Nepali are attracted to unconventional jewelries, save a few shops in Thamel, Durbar Marg and New Road, not many shops cater to the demand. And unfortunately, even these few focus mostly on foreigners.
One being asked the price of a plastic necklace at Namaste Handicraft, Thamel, Ramesh Pandey, the shop owner refrained from telling its “real price”. After bugging him for a while, he hesitantly revealed, “Well, actually its actual price is two hundred rupees. But when I sell it to foreigner, I begin with fifteen hundred. Even if they bargain, they’ll at least buy it for nine hundred. So, I prefer selling it to the foreigners.”
Similarly, R K Silwal of Thamel Silver Smith Place, shared, “Nepali weigh jewels and tend to pay for its gram and minimal labor charge only. Therefore, I prefer selling it to foreigners, who calculate labor charge according to their own national standard, which is obviously high.”
bhushita@myrepublica.com
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