Handmade and hand-cut chooris are now sui-generis in the genre. First, the specialist choori-mistris are nearly extinct, their long and rigorous training to mould their hands to be able to form inf...

Handmade and hand-cut chooris are now sui-generis in the genre. First, the specialist choori-mistris are nearly extinct, their long and rigorous training to mould their hands to be able to form infinite designs on solid 22K gold tubes being considered too vast an investment of time by the younger generation of artisans who'd swear by their machines instead and do just the perfunctory turning ; and then the time factor : a genuine hand-chiselled choori takes twice as long to make as a machine one and then may have to be re-done if inaccurate (rarely so), as in, say, a flower motif that may not have been repeated the required number of times in the ornament or a cut of pattern that's deeper than the others in the set. Suffice it to say, handmade, 'haatey-kata' chooris are no longer popular. That's a shame, really, considering they're near indestructible and the jella (shine and sparkle) stays forever and they age very, very gracefully. Perhaps the fact that they age at all is the problem in a world that's hell-bent on staying young and young-looking at whatever cost. These sort of chooris are never exchanged ; they're left for the next generation to wear with cherished memories, and for the next and the next . . . while the new machine-cut ones look tired after a while and are promptly recycled. The bangles in the picture are solid benki (rick-rack) chooris, the pattern of which is influenced by a single architectural feature (this 'borrowing' of motifs from irrelated industry was common then) of residences in Calcutta in the early twentieth century ---- the room ventilator.These arm ornaments became de rigeur for most well-heeled Bengali women around that time and a dozen were commonly worn on each hand. Here, you see them with a typical jhanjri (grill) and tal-pata (palmyra palm leaves) pattern, the latter giving them sparkle while the serrated lines catch electric light in interesting ways. The gauge of the square section reveals the bangle's weight and is proof of excellent build and assured longevity. Significanty, those sound like qualities the choori also bestows upon its wearer. Taking a chisel and hammer to precious ornaments may not seem the most gracious way of crafting them but the power of sculpture evident in the strokes does evoke a sense of the eternal and helps us feel the raw passion with which the chisel carves its way through the gold almost as if the very notion of beauty in jewellery as soft and intricate and noble lies challenged by the wounds inflicted on the yellow metal to create a timeless jewel, much in the manner of a single note that strikes and tears into silence to give us the origin of a heavenly raga.