Material girl

Does luck really change when you find a four-leaf clover? One Vogue India editor became a firm believer when certain mainstays in her wardrobe turned her fortunes around.

- SHRIYA ZAMINDAR

Retrograde season and daily horoscopes are catnip for Vogue India's loyal audience.

Evidently for Indians, few breaking stories can beat a meaty weekly forecast of your zodiac to generate that burning desire to read. To pad our luck IRL, we often resort to weapons of astrological warfare from auspicious dates for important meetings to talismans that promise to shower love, money and success upon us. I credit the beginning of my affinity for jewellery to my mother's astrologer. When I was 14, he told her that I could avoid contracting UTIs by wearing a plain gold band on the index finger of my left hand. It seems to have been successful so far it was just a few weeks ago that my posterior made contact with an underground club's toilet and I've emerged unscathed.

Somewhere between using gold rings as protection from germs and falling in love with pretty baubles for their own sake, I began to search for vital meaning in objects and articles of clothing as tools for controlling the narrative when organic luck was down.

My fingers rarely venture out of the house without a series of shiny rocks dotting my writing hand. Part of this collection is a topaz ring-and-pendant set, a gift from my late aunt who, when she was healthy, had found her calling in designing jewellery. For me, more than my mother, she was the first port of call in any emergency whether it was boys, college drama or workplace politics.