Returns of a Different Kind
Some objects, like real diamonds, are worth saving for — not for their financial value, but for what they come to represent
An investment in an act of hope.
In the assurance of stability, comfort, fulfillment — even amid uncertainty.
I trust my SIPs to build my child’s college fund. I’m grateful for my grandfather’s bequest to each of his granddaughters. And I know my diligent, consistent, automatic savings will ease retirement.
But a mutual fund isn’t a memory.
In the decades ahead, I want to remember the person who brought me there, too. And the individual moments, big and small — subtle, until they are all there is.
It’s why part of each paycheck is committed to something real, something immediate, something eternal. Original artworks, heirloom crafts, natural diamonds — tangible and timeless.
An intentional gift to myself, an investment in a personal tomorrow.
A Pair of Earrings, A Promise of Beauty
I didn’t expect the isolation. Alone in my uncertainty, in my nausea, in my newfound restrictions, and a body that was increasingly unrecognizable. Milestones came and went as I remained in hiding, until the three-month mark passed without incident. Social and cultural conditioning really can get the best of us. I leaned into the bubble though, my introversion finally an asset. In the days that blended into evenings, I binge-watched shows I’d seen before, lurked on pregnancy forums for discussions I couldn’t yet have, and laid flat for hours, dressed in my rotation of pajamas, Luna alongside — couch rot core, before it became popular. I wasn’t seeking beauty, but it found me. Through a pair of earrings by Shachee Fine Jewellery — gold woven into lace flowers, with natural diamonds as if dew drops on petals — that I stumbled upon on Instagram. In that moment, I recognised beauty, and an idea that had been so removed from my reality crystallised on my cracked screen. Not just in design but in intention, in knowing that months of craftsmanship transformed an abstraction into art. The earrings, I thought, were an assertion of optimism, an investment not in gold and diamonds, but in promise — that eventually things look up, solidifying into something beautiful.
“IT HANGS IN MY LIVING ROOM TODAY, A SILENT REMINDER THAT POSSIBILITY, AND COURAGE, CAN BE QUIETLY CONSTANT.”
A Piece of Art, The Privilege of Possibility
We were all in it together, in April 2020. Baking banana bread, learning to Zoom, and reeling from the chaos of Tiger King. When I look through my photo album from those months, I see science experiments with pizza dough, stacks of paperback books, and makeshift setups for Instagram Live interviews for work. It would be months before dread became the emotional norm — yet Shilpa Gupta’s No Fear photograph series drifted into my mind and made itself home. I repeated the sentence scribbled on balloons across the world — “I want to live with no fear” — like a mantra, somehow certain I’d need the affirmation. My enquiry to the gallery felt urgent, as if the piece already belonged to me and I wanted it in my safe custody. It wasn’t the thrill of something new, rather the reassurance of something familiar. The day the photograph arrived was, unbeknownst to me, my last at the magazine where I had worked for over five years. I found myself without a job, without a plan, without a purpose — not by choice, but by circumstance. But, as I understood from the photograph, I had the privilege of possibility. It hangs in my living room today, a silent reminder that possibility, and courage, can be quietly constant.
A Diamond Heirloom, A Connection Rebuilt
My memories of my grandmother aren’t sentimental. She wasn’t that kind of person. She looked ahead rather than within, dwelling in nothing but the moment. Nothing could come between her rummy game with friends, her ability to find joy wherever she was, or her insistence to alter her own clothes, even in her late eighties as she readied her wardrobe for my wedding. Formidable? Yes, always. Warm and fuzzy? Not so much. She seemed invincible. Until, well, she wasn’t. And I ran out of time to have all the conversations I imagined — from her experience of Partition to her sight-unseen marriage to my grandfather. Then I look at her necklace, one that now belongs to me. Interlocking natural diamonds and emeralds, set exactly as she intended — a reminder that who you are can live on in what you choose. My mother gave it to me unprompted one afternoon, they reminded me of you she said. I keep it at home, rather than stowed in the locker, because I see myself wearing it again and again, paired with its matching bracelet, layered with a strand of diamonds, or simply on its own, as it drapes over my protruding collarbones. A silent conversation that continues every time I reach for it.
It could be art or an heirloom natural diamond piece. I’ve realised that the objects I’ve come to consider investments are tethered to relationships that shaped me, moments that changed me. They hold space for memory, for meaning, for hope that’s not naive but deliberate. A reminder that optimism, care, and continuity are things worth investing in. Not every purchase is meant to be a bargain. It’s about choosing what will continue to matter, long after the moment has passed.
