Recently I accompanied my niece to a trip to the jewelers. She was all rosy and happily blushing in her positive vibrancy and excitement to choose the perfect circular band to tie her self with the love of her life. Since it had been quite some years that I last visited the jewelers, not being too fond of them really, I could not apprehend what would lay beyond me. I thought choosing a band for a guy would be easy-peasy and that we would be done in a jiffy. I had the hunch that my niece being the very gawdy and flashy kind herself, would make good use of the couple of months savings that she had reserved to buy her man the ring that she would choose. I was more there as the guardian angel who would be there to control her frenzied state of mind and show her the right thing to choose.

But all failed my sense when I myself entered the engagement rings department at the famous jewelers at Harrods. What lay ahead of me in the unisex as well as men’s section was not the sparse picture I would have imagined in all my life. All I know that seeing the ocean of choices I was suddenly even more blushed and thrilled along with being confused than my niece. I even wished that I would have roped in a fresh marriage all over again just to be blessed with a brand new ring as a gift. Oh! Only if somebody would have!! What joy and rapture was it to witness the array of the most exquisite and stylish looking rings made exclusively crisp and smart for everyday use. There were rather elaborate ones too, including ones coming with three stones or triple layered bands. There were those with tiny dots of very beautifully encrusted stones of all kinds. Some kind were the more fanciful kinds but you could never really afford to call any effeminized. I f you couldn’t agree with any that demanded too much attention, you still had very formal and plain looking options with oodles of charm. Taking a serious and thorough pick one had to be confused. But hats off to the massive jewelry designing works and experimentations going on currently that you have every kind you could imagine as well as not imagine, right at your fingertips. I have witnessed some of the most beautiful kings of etchings over different strata’s of platinum and cold. Masculine looking triple metal layered bands with or without stone embellishments on them were a delight and a thrill to watch. You had to keep glaring at the widest range of textures that can be polished or roughened and conditioned out of white gold and silver. From intricate and very boastful looking mythical figures standing out of a combination of yellow gold and blackish cat’s eye to the even more shockingly larger than-life Edwardian designs, these tiny bands not only reflected the most varied forms of charms and standards for themselves, but also entire ranges of myths speaking out of their own creation! Being totally bedazzled by the range of availability we finally shortlisted ourselves to the section that fit our budget. I don’t know whether I helped in any way to get my niece stick to the convention but she finally chose a gold band with a dot of topaz and a diamond, tastefully placed across it. Feeling victorious to have finally made a good choice by somehow managing to keep our heads screwed to the right place, we managed to escape the voodoo charm of that fireball. But must say that a lot of my days later remained filled up, throbbing with remembrance of those fascinating gems.